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A CONCISE HISTORY
OF THE AMERICAS
Discovery to Independence
By Abraham Hoffman
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© 2014
Abraham Hoffman
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION----------------------------------------------------------CHAPTER 1: THE AGE OF DISCOVERY---------------------------CHAPTER 2: THE NATIVE PEOPLES OF THE
WESTERN HEMISPHERE-----------------------------CHAPTER 3: THE SPANISH CONQUEST--------------------------CHAPTER 4: EXPLORING THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE----CHAPTER 5: HISPANIC SOCIETY IN A NEW WORLD---------CHAPTER 6: SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE-------------CHAPTER 7: COLONIAL BRAZIL-----------------------------------CHAPTER 8: FRANCE IN THE AMERICAS-----------------------CHAPTER 9: ENGLAND IN THE AMERICAS---------------------CHAPTER 10: CHURCH AND STATE IN THE AMERICAS----CHAPTER 11: ECONOMIC AND INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES-CHAPTER 12: INTERNATIONAL RIVALRIES------------------------CHAPTER 13: THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE AMERICAS--CHAPTER 14: THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE------------------------
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INTRODUCTION
The History of the Americas course was the creation of Dr. Herbert
E. Bolton, history professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in
the early 20th century. A native of Wisconsin, trained at the University of
Texas, Bolton was attracted to what became known as the Spanish
Borderlands as an area for research. This region ran roughly from
California to Florida and took in the northern area of today’s Mexico.
Bolton’s books include The Spanish Borderlands, a survey of Spanish
exploration from Baja California to Florida; The Rim of Christendom, a
biography of Jesuit Father Eusebio Kino; Coronado, Knight of Pueblo and
Plains, a biography of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado; Wider Horizons of
American History, a collection of his essays calling for a hemispheric
approach to studying American history; and other books and articles.
Bolton taught history at Berkeley from 1909 until his death in 1953.
In 1932 Bolton was elected president of the American Historical
Association. His presidential address, “The Epic of Greater America,”
noted the narrow focus of United States history which at the time was
largely limited to political history, a New England perspective, and
omission of minorities and women. Bolton argued for a wider geographic
perspective that would include the contributions not only of English but
also French, Spanish, and Dutch explorers and settlers. He claimed the
Americas shared a common history that invited comparative study
between the United States and its neighbors to north and south.
Alas, Bolton didn’t practice what he preached. His own research
and publications focused on the Spanish Borderlands, and he never made
any study of Latin America in the colonial or national periods. Moreover,
he wrote history from a Eurocentric viewpoint, omitting the perspective of
the native peoples of the Americas. Nevertheless, Bolton struck a popular
note with his appeal, and History of the Americas courses appeared in
college catalogs across the nation. It should be noted, however, that
Bolton was not the first historian to call for a wider perspective on the
Americas. In 1898 Bernard Moses, a professor at Berkeley, called the
study of the Spanish in America “the neglected half of American history.”
He recommended “that we should adopt a more comprehensive view of
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American history, and consider our institutions and achievements in
relation to the institutions and achievements of other nations that began as
we began on the virgin soil of a new world.” William R. Shepherd of
Columbia University lamented in 1909 on the lack of balance in American
history. “The share of the Spanish, the Portuguese, and the French in the
several processes of discovery, exploration, colonization, and civilization
should be studied from the several standpoints of their intrinsic interest
and significance,” he said.
Bolton himself urged these themes in his “Epic of Greater
America” address. He called for “a broader treatment of American
history, to supplement the purely nationalistic presentation to which we are
accustomed.” Ironically, Bolton never wrote a textbook for the course.
The closest he came to it was History of the Americas (1928, 1935), a
compilation of lecture notes and outlines rather than a narrative text. That
task was left to other scholars, of whom two stand out: Vera Brown
Holmes and John Francis Bannon, S.J.
In 1950 Holmes, a professor of history at Smith College, published
A History of the Americas, Volume I (Volume II, covering the national
period after independence, appeared in 1964). At 554 pages of text with
only a few illustrations and maps, the book made up in thoroughness what
it lacked in reader appeal to students not majoring in history. Its 22
chapters would have to be crammed into the college semester that usually
ran to eighteen weeks. Father Bannon’s 1952 effort, History of the
Americas, appeared in a similar two-volume format, the first volume with
34 chapters in 577 pages. Bannon’s volumes had no illustrations, and a
minimum number of maps. These books followed a conventional
approach to textbook publishing that by the end of the 1960s was already
being dramatically revised (though not without some criticism, as modern
textbooks are often accused of being “dumbed down’). Most students
today would find these books far too demanding for a survey course.
In recent years teachers of the “History of the Americas” course
have had to scramble for a suitable text. Since none really exists, they
make do with textbooks actually written for courses in Latin American
history, then attempt to fill in the French, English, and Native American
perspectives with supplementary books and articles. To tell the truth, I
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find this approach a hodge-podge that ultimately satisfies neither teacher
nor student.
With this view in mind, I decided to create a narrative work that
would try to fit the spirit of Bolton’s concept of Greater America rather
than go into excruciating detail on every aspect of Western Hemisphere
history. Thus I focus on the Aztec as a representative example and not the
Inca, and Coronado but not De Soto, and so on. Students who wish to
delve deeper into this fascinating subject may find the works of Holmes
and Brown still useful, as well as the numerous monographs on specific
topics. Each chapter ends with a list of recommended readings.
Bolton and his generation of scholars wore blinders in one
important area: they wrote largely from a Eurocentric perspective, and too
often described conquistadores as heroic and romantic adventurers rather
than the bloody butchers all too many of them were. In a similar vein, they
gave little attention to native peoples of the Americas, seeing them as
obstacles to European colonization. The clock cannot be turned backward,
but we may use history to measure whether we have “progressed” over the
past five centuries to a greater level and tolerance for each other’s culture
and values.
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CHAPTER 1:
THE AGE OF DISCOVERY
Prelude: The Vikings in America
In reference to Columbus’s 1492 voyage, the question will often
come up about the Vikings and whether they preceded Columbus to
America by 500 years. The question merits attention, if only to clarify just
what the Vikings accomplished and how what they did differs from the
consequences of Columbus’s voyeage.
The Vikings evolved from Norse pirate raiders over a period of
about 300 years, from 700-1000 AD. Their descendants can be found in
Ireland, England, France (Normandy region), Russia, Sicily, and the Holy
Land, as well as Scandinavia. Aggressive and healthy, they found
opportunities for leadership in their native Scandinavia limited by the
available arable land. This accounts in part for their movement to other
places. By the 10th century they had occupied remote islands off Britain,
and they had set up a fairly successful colony in Iceland. Still, population
pressures prompted exploration for new lands. Around AD 986 Eric the
Red and a group of Vikings reached Greenland. Actually, there wasn’t
much “green” there, but Erik apparently believed that calling the place
“Snowland” would attract few people. The small settlement raised
livestock and did some cultivation during the short growing season.
Greenland’s agricultural limitations motivated Eric’s son, Leif
Erickson, to sail further west in search of land for a new settlement. His
voyage took him to the northeast coast of North America, including
Newfoundland, Labrador, and the somewhat vaguely identified area called
Vinland. They set up several small outposts but lacked the technology,
population, and economic motive to deal with the land and its native
people whom they called Skraelings (Eskimos). The Vikings and Eskimos
had little to trade with each other, and their cultures seemed worlds apart.
One tragic misunderstanding stands out: the Vikings gave the Eskimos
milk to drink. Eskimos never had milk and were lactose intolerant, so the
milk made them ill. They then suspected the Vikings of trying to poison
them. Hostilities commenced, but the Vikings were outnumbered and in a
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strange land, and by 1020 A.D. the Eskimos had driven them out of
Vinland.
Eventually the Greenland settlements declined as a prolonged cold
weather pattern curtailed food production and made life there miserable.
Viking trade items from the area, including furs and walrus tusks (for
ivory), found few customers in Europe where better versions came from
Russia, Asia, and Africa via routes blazed by adventurers such as Marco
Polo. Greenland’s inhospitable climate forced the last of the Viking
settlers out by about 1300 A.D.
What does this mean for the “discovery” of America? The Vikings
left little evidence of their presence in North America, and what they did
leave were archaeological curiosities of a few stone foundations and
personal items. They left no influence on the native people they
encountered who in any event wanted nothing to do with them.
Nevertheless, some people have argued for a much greater recognition of
the Viking presence than they deserve (above their remarkable feats of
seamanship and exploration). Minnesota serves as an extreme example of
this argument. Viking fans claim the authenticity of the Kensington rune
stone, generally considered by scholars as a fraud. The fans also assert
that Vikings made it as far inland as Minnesota, with no reliable evidence
to support the claim. Minnesotans, however, are a stubborn people;
witness the naming of their football team, the Minnesota Vikings. Also, in
1965 came news of the discovery of a “Vinland Map” purporting to show
North America around 1000 A.D. The map was quickly revealed to be a
forgery.
Without long-term consequences, the Viking explorations became
a footnote to history, and the full chapter of Europeans discovering
America would not occur until five centuries later.
Discovering the Age of Discovery
The Age of Discovery-beginning in the early 15th century and
continuing in some areas into the 20th century-requires some definition
and explanation. For the most part the term has been applied to the
explorations of European nations, though other areas of the world,
especially Asia, were investigating unknown lands. The Age of Discovery
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coincides with the end of the Middle Ages, a thousand-year period framed
by the fall of the Roman Empire at one end and the beginning of the
Renaissance at the other. In the interim Europe suffered through economic
collapse, the increasing power and eventual supremacy of the Catholic
Church, the practice of feudalism, and the substitution of superstition and
ignorance for inquiry and understanding.
At the third grade level, eight-year-old children are usually taught
that “Columbus discovered America because he wanted to prove the world
was round.” Beyond the basic inaccuracies of this sentence (and, given its
widespread acceptance, just how inaccurate it is), there is the question of
who would be asked in 1492 if they even thought the world was round.
Most people in Europe couldn’t have cared less, because most people were
peasants and serfs who never went more than ten miles in any direction
from the place where they were born. Medieval theologians cared if they
ran across anyone willing to challenge the accepted order of things, and
even well after the Middle Ages were history, Galileo could get into
trouble over his conception not of a round earth but of the earth’s place in
the universe.
A round earth would have been important to merchants and
seamen, and they knew it was round anyway. Exploration and discovery
did not hinge on the sphericity of the earth, but how unknown were the
unknown parts. The question was how to get past the unknown to the
known, as Marco Polo had done by going from the known of Italy across
the unknown of Asia to reach the (somewhat) known of Cathay (China).
The degree of mystery about the world and the desire to penetrate
the unknown depended on a wide range of factors. Political and social
developments had to wait for technological changes in the designs of ships
and invention of more accurate navigating instruments. At the height of
the Middle Ages a succession of European crusaders had invaded the Holy
Land, fighting Muslims, building castles, and learning of different
cultures. When the Christians and Muslims tired of trying to kill each
other, they learned quite a bit about the possibilities of economic
exchange. The Middle East had access to or cultivated a large number of
products unknown to Europe. In an age lacking in refrigeration,
Europeans salted meat and fish to preserve them-an efficient if not
particularly palatable way to prevent such foods from rotting. The
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crusaders learned of the virtues of pepper, cloves, mace, nutmeg, oregano,
and other spices that either helped preserve food or enhanced its taste.
They also found out about silk, jade, coffee, and other items that enhanced
the quality of life.
These trade goods found their way back to Europe, but at first only
the nobility could afford them. Over time the demand for such products
increased as the economy of Europe improved. Cities grew, and with the
cities grew a middle class. The terrible plague epidemics of the 14th
century resulted in a shortage of labor, and peasants fled serfdom for
opportunities in the cities. By the 15th century a European middle class
had come to expect products from the Far East. Marco Polo was probably
the most famous of the merchants who connected Europe to Asia over the
silk road.
For centuries imagination had served Europe as a substitute for
knowledge. Religion and science were so entwined it was impossible to
describe a natural phenomenon without doing so in religious terms. The
Catholic Church, dedicated to the preservation of knowledge during the
Dark Ages, was reluctant to accept new ideas as the Middle Ages gave
way to the Renaissance. An unknown African (or was it Asian?) interior
was said to be the home of Prester John, a Christian king anxious to
reunite with his coreligionists if a route could be found to where he lived.
Such a route was fraught with peril-not of a flat world, but one filled with
exotic and dangerous peoples and strange beasts. The maps of the Middle
Ages proved totally inadequate as religion got in the way of geography
(the conventional map of the world placed Jerusalem at the center and
Paradise to the east).
The best way to overcome lack of knowledge was to find things
out. The lure of the spice trade, the riches of the Far East, even finding
Prester John, helped motivate the monarchs of rising national states to
sponsor explorations. And of the new nations, none was more interested
to do so than Portugal.
Portuguese Explorations
In 1415 Portugal was a fully independent nation free of Muslim
and Spanish political influences. A look at a map of Europe shows that
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Portugal was not a Mediterranean nation. Its rivers and seaports opened to
the Atlantic Ocean, and so its interest lay in areas that France, Austria,
Spain, and England were not concerned with at the time. The Battle of
Ceuta, fought between the Portuguese and North African Muslims in 1415,
won Portugal a toehold on the African continent opposite the Strait of
Gibraltar. However, the Portuguese quickly realized that winning at
warfare didn’t necessarily translate into peacetime profit. Caravans had
brought gold, silver, copper, brass, silks, and spice to Ceuta, but no more.
The Portuguese had to learn to contact and reestablish trade
communication with the Muslim caravans, and to resolve the apparent
contradiction of beng merchants and Christian crusaders. Fortunately for
the Portuguese, they figured out how to do so.
Between 1415 and 1460 Portugal had a leader who helped broaden
the small nation’s perspective on the world. Prince Henry was the third
son of John I and as such had virtually no chance of inheriting the throne.
What he did was to dedicate his life to promoting geographic discovery.
At Sagres, Land’s End-the point of land beyond which was the open seaHenry created a school for geographic knowledge. He collected a library
of charts, maps, instruments, quadrants, captain’s logs, books, and other
information sources. Sagres ran a cartography school, and pilots and
navigators were trained there. To apply a modern term, Henry was an
equal-opportunity employer who hired Christians, Jews, and Muslims for
their abilities without worrying about their religious beliefs.
Unlike Christopher Columbus, who later on in the century would
use established information whether it was accurate or not, Henry
encouraged finding out about the unknown. For Portugal, this meant the
Atlantic coast of Africa. Reports about the continent to the south claimed
that Africa was a peninsula and that if a ship rounded its cape, it would be
in the Indian Ocean and within accessible distance of the Far Eastern spice
trade. However, this view contradicted Ptolemaic geography that after
1,200 years still carried great influence in Europe (and especially for
Columbus). Ptolemy, a second-century Roman geographer, had drawn
maps of Europe and the world that had survived the Medieval period. His
European cartography was quite accurate, and the outline of
Ptolemy's’Europe looks pretty much the way it does on modern maps. His
other efforts were less successful. If Ptolemy was to be believed, the
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Indian Ocean was a closed area, with Africa connected to the Antarctic
continent.
Which view was correct? A revival of Ptolemy’s work in the late
Middle Ages made him very authoritative, and it would take some effort to
undo his incorrect ideas. Ptolemaic geography claimed the earth was ¾
land and ¼ water-the reverse was true. He held to a geocentric theory in
which the earth was the center of the universe. And he was wrong about
the circumference of the planet, claiming it was about 18,000 miles-twothirds its actual size. These beliefs would have to be challenged and
proved wrong, and the Portuguese would be the first to test the veracity of
Ptolemaic geography.
Cape Bojador is an obscure pimple on the coast of North Africa.
Insignificant by today’s standard of geography, it presented a
psychological barrier to anyone who would dare sail south along the
Atlantic coast of Africa. Sailors believed that rocks and other perils
awaited them at Bojador. Prince Henry pushed for a greater effort to get
around the cape. It took twenty years, but in 1435 Portuguese ships went
past the cape and found they could sail further south. Along the way
Portugal claimed the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands, and Madeira. Spain
awakened somewhat tardily to the Atlantic islands but put in its claim for
the Canary Islands.
As the years went by, Portugal traveled further and further down
the coast of Africa, mapping, exploring, and making contact with African
kingdoms. Prince Henry offered an annual prize to the captain who sailed
furthest south for that year. In 1441 the Portuguese reached Cape Blanco.
Four years later they concluded a fateful trade connection near the cape
and brought back 200 Africans to be sold as slaves. These were people
whose nation had lost in war to the kingdom that sold them to the
Portuguese. It marked the beginning of a trade in human beings that
would go on for more than 400 years. Although slavery dated to biblical
times as a non-racial consequence of winners over losers, the African slave
trade would put a racial definition on slavery that had enormous
consequences for the future.
Portuguese exploration southward continued after Prince Henry’s
death in 1460. Although Henry never went on any of the voyages, his
leadership and promotion of exploration earned him in history the
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nickname of “the Navigator.” After crossing the Equator, the Portuguese
found themselves sailing in the Southern Hemisphere under a different set
of geographic rules. In 1485 the Jewish astrologer-mathematician Joseph
Vizinho, under the sponsorship of John II of Portugal, worked out how to
determine the latitude south of the Equator by the height of the sun at
midday. Vizinho also translated Abraham Zacuto’s Almanac Perpetuum
into Latin; this was a major guide for finding one’s position at sea by the
declination of the sun. Zacuto, a Jewish mathematician, was exiled from
Spain in 1492. A more tolerant John II welcomed him and his knowledge
to Portugal.
In 1487 Bartholemu Dias, sailing for Portugal, rounded the Cape of
Good Hope and proceeded into the Indian Ocean, more by accident-a
storm-than design. South of the Equator, the North Star was no longer
visible, and seamen had to trust to the newest available knowledge when
old information no longer worked. When Dias returned to Portugal in
December 1488, enormous crowds cheered his arrival in Lisbon. One man
in the crowd probably didn’t cheer: Christopher Columbus, in town to see
John II on getting sponsored for his idea to reach the Indies by sailing
westward. Columbus knew that the king would never back him, since
Dias had shown the viability of sailing around Africa to the Indies.
As a little-known footnote, John II didn’t rely just on coastal
expeditions to find a route to the Indies. In 1487 he sent two men overland
across Africa to Ethiopia and India. Pedro da Conilha made it as far as
Goa on the western coast of India, and he traveled back to Cairo, Egypt.
After many adventures he remained stuck in Ethiopia. But his reports did
get back to Portugal, and he confirmed India could be reached by sea.
Columbus and the Atlantic Surprise
Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, an Italian city-state
(there would be no nation of Italy until 1860), in 1451. Two years later the
Turks captured Constantinople, the city strategically located at the
Bosphorus separating Europe from the Anatolian Peninsula (modern
Turkey). The Crusades had long since failed to keep a Christian/European
political presence in the Eastern Mediterranean area, and the Turks
effectively controlled the region from Turkey down through Palestine,
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Egypt, and much of North Africa. In other words, the Turks blocked the
land route east to Cathay. Any merchant traveling the Silk Road had to
pay excessive tribute to the Turks. Prices for Far Eastern products soared.
How to get around the Turkish blockade? The Portuguese were still
cautiously heading down the African coast.
Columbus grew up hearing stories of the Turks and how they had
curtailed Genoese trade. He became a sailor, rose to the rank of captain,
and acquired extensive sailing experience. Gradually he formulated the
idea of sailing west to get to the Indies, Cathay, and Cipango (Japan).
However, he tended to read those sources of information that confirmed
his interpretations and preconceived ideas about geography, and he
accepted Ptolemaic theory as accurate.
In the 1480s Columbus tried to gain audiences with monarchs in
France, England, Portugal, and Spain, but no one accepted his proposal.
Often in modern times the impression is given that Columbus failed to
convince ignorant royal advisers of the rightness of his ideas. But one
doesn’t get to be a royal adviser by being ignorant. They turned him down
not because they thought the world was flat, but because their math was
better than his. Royal advisers preferred the geometry of Eratosthenes
who around 250 B.C. calculated the circumference of the earth at about
23,000 miles, very close to the actual number. Columbus preferred
Ptolemy’s figure that was a third short. Moreover, in matters of distance,
water, and provisions, Columbus was proposing a poor business venture
since all these estimates were way off.
Columbus finally found a sponsor in 1492 when he returned to
Spain after an earlier refusal. This time he arrived when King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabella were in a good mood. Christian Spain had defeated
Granada, the last Moorish (Muslim) stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula.
Ferdinand, interested in Mediterranean politics and an alliance with
Austria against France, paid little attention to Columbus. But Isabella
heard him out. Columbus laid out his proposal: for establishing a viable
westward route to the Indies he would be given the rank of Admiral of the
Ocean Sea; governor of all the lands he discovered; a tenth part of the
wealth he found; and the expedition would be outfitted at no expense to
himself (one begins to see why the other monarchs had turned him down).
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Queen Isabella approved of the plan, though she didn’t have to
pawn her jewels (a story invented by Washington Irving 350 years later).
She ordered three seaport towns to come up with ships and crews. As
might be expected, the towns tried to get away with providing what they
could get away with-two of the ships were so small, they are remembered
only by their nicknames, Nina and Pinta, and a larger ship, the Santa
Maria. Crewmen came from the cadre of sailors in search of a berth, as
well as prison inmates offered the opportunity to go on a sea voyage
instead of rotting in jail.
On August 3, 1492, the Columbus expedition left the port of Palos,
stopped for provisions at the Canary Islands, and then spent 33 days
crossing the Atlantic westward before finding an obscure island in the
Bahamas. In making this voyage, Columbus broke with sailing tradition
by going out into the open sea. By contrast, the Portuguese sailing south
always kept an eye on the African coast if possible. Being at sea with no
land in sight made crews nervous. Columbus tried to reassure them by
claiming that according to his calculations they hadn’t gone very far.
Meanwhile, unknown to the crew, he kept a second log in which he
entered what he believed was his own, more accurate measurement of the
distance traveled. Ironically, Columbus’s lies to his crew were more
accurate than his secret log! Since instruments of the time made it
impossible to calculate longitude correctly, his error can be explained,
though the fact remains that he wanted to believe he was further west than
he actually was.
On October 12, 1492 (Julian Calendar), land was spotted, though
to this day it is not clear just which island in the Bahamas Columbus had
reached. What is clear is his belief he had reached the Indies. The natives
on the island wore no Eastern clothing as Marco Polo had described-in
fact, they wore hardly any clothing. But Columbus found these islands
consistent with what he knew about Asia-islands off the coast of a large
continent-and so, believing he was in the Indies, he called the natives
“Indians”-a misnomer that remains to this day. And he believed he had
reached the Indies until the day he died, fourteen years later.
Having reached his goal, Columbus had to determine how to return
to Europe. Sailing around the Caribbean, checking out the islands, he
came across major wind currents blowing from the west--the prevailing
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westerly winds. These wind currents blew him back across the Atlantic to
Spain and unlocked the mystery of trans-Atlantic travel. Columbus
returned knowing nothing of North and South America, having seen only a
few hitherto unknown islands that he claimed as the Indies-the same area
that Portugal was inching closer to by going down and around Africa.
European mathematicians checked their figures in consternation. How had
he gone there and back so fast? The confusion spread by Columbus’s
misinformation resulted in cartographers drawing some very bizarre world
maps for the next half-century.
The Spanish-Portuguese Wrangle
When Columbus made his voyage in 1492, Portugal disputed his
claim of reaching the Indies. At first the Portuguese said his find belonged
to them. King John II of Portugal and Ferdinand of Spain agreed to take
the dispute to Pope Alexander VI. The Pope split the difference with a
line of demarcation down the so-called middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Both monarchs then agreed to the Treaty of Tordesillas on June 7, 1494.
This agreement avoided war but was full of ambiguities about the papal
line of demarcation. Enough ambiguity existed so that six years later
Pedro Cabral, sailing for Portugal but blown westward off course in his
effort to round Africa, found he was by land that appeared to be east of the
demarcation line-land that Europe would soon know as Brazil.
The wrangle delayed Portuguese efforts to reach the Indies (the
“real” Indies, that is, not the areas Columbus claimed to have reached). In
1495 Manuel I, the new king of Portugal, sent Vasco da Gama on a voyage
to the Indies. Da Gama prepared carefully, fitting out his two ships with
the best maps, astronomical instruments, math tables, and supplies.
Unlike Columbus, who had to persuade a monarch for ships and
provisions, Da Gama went with the full endorsement of his king, setting
out on July 8, 1497.
The differences in the distance and time spent between Columbus
and Da Gama is striking. Columbus had traveled 2,600 miles before a fair
wind that took him from the Canaries to the Bahamas in 33 days. Da
Gama, dealing with contrary winds and opposite currents, took a big swing
from the Cape Verde Islands to the Cape of Good Hope, covering 3,700
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miles in 93 days. From there he went to India, reaching the Malabar Coast
on May 22, 1498. He was somewhat surprised to encounter Muslim
merchants from North Africa who were fluent in Italian and Spanish, an
indication of how important the Mediterranean trade had been before the
Turkish blockade. Although Da Gama failed to establish good trade
relations, he did come back with a cargo of spices that produced an
enormous profit for its backers-and only 55 out of the original 170
crewmen who had begun the trip.
On the second voyage in 1502 Da Gama brought a squadron of
ships with him. To make sure that the king of Calicut got the message
about how serious Portugal was to set up a trade connection, Da Gama
ordered local merchants hanged, their bodies cut up, and their hands,
heads, and feet tossed into a boat and sent to the king. Da Gama suggested
the remains be made into a curry. The king of Calicut caved in. Returning
with his ships loaded with trade goods, Da Gama left five of his ships in
the area as a permanent Portuguese naval force.
Portugal soon had a number of outposts in the Indian Ocean-the
Ormuz gateway to the Persian Gulf (1507), the city of Goa on mainland
India (1510, held by Portugal until the 1950s), Malacca (1511), and trade
contacts with Siam, the Moluccas (the “Spice Islands”), and China.
Venice and Genoa had tried to keep up a route through the Red Sea and
Persian Gulf, paying off the Turks. But the Portuguese route around the
Cape of Good Hope led to commerce on the Atlantic side of Europe, to the
cost of the Mediterranean traders. In 1503, the price of pepper in Lisbon
was already just a fifth of the cost it was in Venice by way of Egypt. So it
was that Portugal created the “Age of the Sea”-the treasures of the Orient
moving west in great volume, with huge profits to merchants and lower
costs to consumers.
Arab and Chinese Explorations
When the Portuguese reached India, Arab traders were already
there. In fact, Arab traders could be found in the Mediterranean, Spain,
North Africa, the Middle East, and southeastern Europe. So why didn’t
the Arabs develop sea routes to Europe? The reality was they had little
incentive to sail from the Indian Ocean around Africa to get to the same
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place. The Arabian Peninsula region was a poor place to set up supply
bases. Arabian expansion was at its most successful in land-based
movement, not sea-based, and its expansion would continue into Europe
well into the 17th century. Its high point (or low point, depending on
whether one is an Arab or European) came in 1683 when the Turks
knocked on the gates of Vienna, Austria, but failed to get the door open.
Their presence in southeastern Europe in religion, culture, and politics
remains to this day and to the tragedy of different peoples in the Balkans
who still have problems learning to live with each other after 500 years.
China’s attitude was totally different from Europe’s in issues of
trade and expansion. Until the 15th century China had established trading
posts in areas of the Indian Ocean all the way to Africa. Curiously, China
did not seek trade; it sought recognition from others of Chinese greatness,
displaying an ostentatious show of wealth and giving much of it away.
This resulted in an odd imbalance of trade as great Chinese fleets, with
huge ships and thousands of sailors, sailed around the Indian Ocean
refusing to buy the products of other people while they gave away their
own. The policy abruptly ended in 1433 when the Chinese emperor and
his government turned inward, insulating itself against the rest of the
world. The great ships were recalled and China sat removed from the
technological and political changes of the rest of the world until the 19th
century. China then realized just how costly its policy of isolation had
been to the nation.
In the might-have-beens of history, there is an interesting footnote
to how the history of Europe and Asia might have been different. Around
1300 A.D. the Europeans and the Mongols (who ruled China at that time)
almost worked out an alliance against their common enemy, the Muslims.
However, the Europeans insisted that first the Mongols should convert to
Christianity; then the alliance could proceed. The Mongols refused, no
alliance resulted, and matters moved on from there.
Consequences of the Atlantic Surprise
Columbus made a total of four voyages to the Western
Hemisphere. With each succeeding trip his authority declined. After the
second voyage, Queen Isabella, unhappy at Columbus’s treatment and
18
enslavement of the native peoples (a devout Catholic, she had concerns
about whether pagan people ignorant of Christianity could be enslaved),
narrowed the interpretation of the original agreement. It was now
understood that others could explore any area not under his jurisdiction.
Now hundreds of adventurers crossed the Atlantic, ready to take a chance
on the New World.
New World. Columbus never realized he had traveled to a
different destination than he had intended. His return with the prevailing
westerly winds made round-trip travel across the Atlantic a reality. It was
left to others in the years that followed to expand on his discovery, finding
new lands and encountering peoples previously unknown to Europe.
One of those adventurers was another Italian ship captain in the
service of Spain, Amerigo Vespucci. On returning from a voyage to the
“Indies,” he turned a small map over to a cartographer and mentioned he
had seen a “new world.” New worlds were blank spaces to the Europeans
and needed identification. The mapmaker thus put in the name “America”
for the person who told him about it. Later explorations resulted in in the
name being applied to both continents. And Columbus? Well, there’s
Columbus, Ohio; Washington, District of Columbia (D.C.); the nation of
Colombia; Columbia Pictures; and no doubt many other place names. But
no continent.
19
For Further Reading
Boorstin, Daniel. The Discoverers (1983).
Elliott, John H. Imperial Spain, 1469-1716 (1963).
Hanke, Lewis, ed. Do the Americas Have a Common History? A Critique
of the Bolton Theory (1964).
Morison, Samuel E. The European Discovery of America: The Northern
Voyages (1971).
Morison, Samuel E. The European Discovery of America: The Southern
Voyages (1974).
Nowell, Charles E. The Great Discoveries and the First Colonial Empires
(1954).
Nunn, George E. The Geographical Conceptions of Columbus (1977).
Parry, J.H. The Age of Reconnaissance (1963).
Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Conquest of Paradise (1990).
Sauer, Carl. The Early Spanish Main (1966).
Ure, John. Prince Henry the Navigator (1977).
Wright, Louis B. Glory, God, and the Gospel (1970).
20
CHAPTER 2:
THE NATIVE PEOPLES OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
When Columbus made his geographic error in believing he was
somewhere in Asia instead of where he really was, he also misnamed the
native peoples he encountered, creating a mistake that has endured for
more than five centuries. To clarify the problem of the “Indies,” later
geographers had to label the “West Indies” (where Columbus was) and
“East Indies” (where he wasn’t), the former area including the Caribbean
islands, the latter India, China, and the nearby Pacific islands.
There was no general name, however, for the native peoples of the
Western Hemisphere. At their most specific, these people identified
themselves by their tribal names. In a larger political context, they might
be known by their confederation or, in the case of the most powerful
groups, as a nation or empire. To this day many tribes are known not by
their own names but by the names other people gave them. Thus some
groups have Spanish or French names, whereas others have names that
seem artificial to modern ears. In a modern era of political correctness and
sensitivity, no one wishes to offend anyone by calling them by a name that
might be taken as offensive. Yet controversy continues, as the
Washington Redskins football team persists in using a name many people
consider racist. Schools have been compelled to drop team and mascot
names even as their alumni argue that tradition and loyalty have made
names such as “Braves” and “Warriors” positive terms.
Any term used to define the native peoples of the Western
Hemisphere needs some qualification. Anthropologists often use the term
Amerindian, combining geography with race, but it is an anthropological
term, not something that native peoples use to define themselves.
Similarly, aborigine is sometimes suggested, but the term is usually
perceived to mean a primitive culture, and many areas in the Western
Hemisphere had highly developed societies in their politics and
architecture, so the term hardly fits for general use. “Native American” is
very popular today, even though it utilizes the name of an Italian explorer,
yet it was not used historically. Some native peoples have adopted the
European terms as a way to promote their concerns: the American Indian
21
Movement (AIM) is such an example. Clearly, words like “savages” are
out of fashion.
Some groups have names that have extended over other peoples.
“Aztecs” became a generic term for numerous groups living in the Valley
of Mexico, where the Aztecs, also known as Mexica, were politically
dominant at the time the Spaniards arrived. “Incas” served a similar
purpose in Peru. The Maya Empire had peaked several centuries before
the arrival of the Europeans. To use the word “tribe” also suggests a
primitive culture, and the term is quite inaccurate for these advanced
societies. The Aztec and Inca were nations, and they exercised imperial
authority over subject peoples.
Some scholars today attempt to avoid the name controversy by
referring generically to indigenes, native peoples, or some other term that
ultimately presents an outsider’s description. From the native viewpoint,
there are activist groups that use the term “First People” or, borrowing
from the European lexicon, “First Americans.” And, to add a touch of
irony to the whole business, immigrants to the United States from India
have the awkward experience of calling themselves “Indian Americans”
and trying to explain they are not “American Indians.”
Arrival of the Native Peoples in the Western Hemisphere
For centuries after Europeans learned of the Western Hemisphere,
they tried to explain how the native peoples got there, in the process
usually betraying their own preconceptions and prejudices. There was
(and is) the view that native peoples were the ten lost tribes of Israel, for
example. At some point every nation or race with an agenda to promote
claims some great influence over the hemisphere, arguing that native
peoples were descendants from or influenced by Africa, Sumeria,
Phoenicia, China, Wales, and other places, and even from the “lost
continent” of Atlantis. A cottage industry of writers, some with
impressive academic credentials, insists that the native peoples of the
Western Hemisphere couldn’t have accomplished their architecture,
craftsmanship, and science without outside help. At the most extreme
viewpoint, Erick von Daniken argues that this outside help came from
outer space. Regrettably, the general public tends to accept the most
22
outlandish theories rather than the conservative and cautious views of
serious scholars. How else to explain that von Daniken’s book, Chariots
of the Gods, has sold more than six million copies worldwide, whereas the
press run of a serious work of archaeological scholarship is at the most
2,000 copies?
“Popular” theories usually demand someone to prove a negative
(“Prove that Indians didn’t originally come from Wales/Atlantis/etc.--I
dare you”). The most generally accepted view among scholars, with
considerable evidence to support it, is that native peoples crossed a land
bridge over the Bering Strait during an ice age when the level of the
oceans dropped. Estimates of this arrival vary widely. Most estimates
fall between 10,000 and 50,000 years ago; a few daring archaeologists
claim as much as 100,000 years, but again, anyone venturing such an
extreme figure finds resistance and criticism from more conservative
scholars. In any event, whether 10,000 or 50,000 years, either length of
time may have been sufficient for migrating tribes to penetrate the areas of
North and South America and to establish distinctive cultures.
Those cultures varied widely, from the high level of civilization
achieved by the Aztecs (discounting the matter of human sacrifice) and
Incas to nomadic tribes lacking knowledge even of pottery and basketry.
Some cultures built huge temples; for others, the village shaman sufficed
for religious leadership. The most advanced cultures constructed great
cities that rivaled those of Europe and even surpassed them in matters of
hygiene and water distribution systems.
In attempting to sort out the various native cultures,
anthropologists number almost as many as the theories they propound.
For example, if arranged by region, some seventeen (or sixteen or
eighteen) groupings of Indian cultures emerge. It is difficult to arrange
cultures by language or culture level because tribes speaking similar
languages might be located hundreds of miles apart; whereas neighboring
people sharing a similar culture may speak totally different languages.
Anthropologists attribute the mix-up to migrations that took place over
thousands of years.
The native peoples of the Americas did not have a static history.
Despite the best wishes of some writers who have idealized them, native
people did not live in a Garden of Eden that lacked conflict or hardship.
23
They traveled from one place to another and in doing so met other peoples
either in harmony or confrontation, often in regard to the right to hunt in a
given territory. Some natives peoples built civilizations that thrived for
hundreds of years and then moved on, leaving a modern age to ponder why
the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde or the great Maya cities of southern
Mexico, Guatemala, or Belize were abandoned.
In some respects, especially in astronomy, mathematics, and
architecture, some native civilizations were more advanced than
contemporary European ones, if total society is consdered. Many
European peasants in 1492 were no better off than Indians living at the
bottom of a structured society. However, other tribes lived in close
relationship with their environment, showing great adaptability but little
intellectual advance. Much of the reason for this disparity, which also
exists elsewhere on the planet, stems from a major choice made by people
between some 11,000 and 13,000 years ago: whether to live as hunters
and gatherers or to turn to cultivating the soil and becoming sedentary
(staying in one place).
This choice of life style assumed major importance in world
history. The choice defined how a group of people would develop
intellectually and culturally. Those societies that chose hunting and
gathering of necessity had to limit their population size and growth. A
hunting-gathering society that grew too large could easily exhaust the
available food supply. Even with population in check, such a society was
nomadic or semi-nomadic, following the sources of food. Although their
hunting skills became highly developed, and their knowledge of edible
plants enabled them to survive in areas where someone from modern times
would starve, little time remained in the day to develop inventions or ideas
that would advance the group materially and culturally. By contrast,
agricultural societies could grow surpluses, enabling part of their
population to devote time to develop religious views, acquire skills as
artisans, and do some hard thinking about math and science. Throughout
history, agricultural societies in the long run have triumphed over huntergatherers. The basic conflict has been going on for a long time; the Old
Testament stories of Cain and Abel, and Jacob and Esau, exemplify the
issue whether people live for the land, or if the land is for the people. A
much more sophisticated version of this ancient argument continues today
24
as politicians and environmentalists argue over endangered species.
Choose your side.
How Inevitable was the Conquest of the Americas?
The stunning victories achieved by Hernando Cortes over the
Aztecs and Francisco Pizarro over the Incas were quite exceptional.
Encounters between Europeans and native peoples more typically were
tentative and cautious. “Conquest” over another people certainly did not
occur all over both continents at once. The shifting of control (rather than
a dramatic term like “conquest”) occurred to different cultures at different
times in different places by different persons/nations, and it took hundreds
of years. Our collective memory plays tricks on us: the most famous
confrontations between whites and Indians in North America, for example,
are concentrated in the period following the Civil War, roughly 18651890. This is the era when Hollywood’s motion pictures about the Old
West and the conflicts between cowboys and Indians takes places. Such a
focus can be very misleading if one considers the long evolution in
firearms between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Still, there is an inevitability in the meeting of a technologically
advanced culture and one that lives in the Stone Age. Native peoples of
the Western Hemisphere did not have the knowledge to create metal
alloys. “Stone” age is a misleading term as there are many kinds of
minerals that can be fashioned into tools and weapons. Even the sharpest
obsidian blade, however, can be easily shattered. The usual focus of
European technological advantage is on weapons, including steel swords,
metal armor, and, over time, firearms. Just as important was literally
anything made of metal, including tools we take for granted today:
needles, fish hooks, scissors, knives, hatchets, axes, and metal pots and
pans. These tools made tasks easier, as native peoples were quick to note.
A second major factor in the subjugation of native peoples was the
bringing to the Western Hemisphere of European animals and plants.
Except for the llama and its cousins, the alpaca and the vicuna in the
Andes range centering on Peru, the Western Hemisphere had no beasts of
burden. Domesticated dogs could only carry a limited load. The native
peoples lacked horses, mules, donkeys, goats, sheep, and pigs--what are
25
collectively called livestock. Mountain goats, bison, antelope, elk, deer-all
were big animals hunted for food; there is no record of anyone
domesticating an antelope to carry a load or pull a wagon. In any event,
native peoples did not have use of the wheel. Although more advanced
native cultures knew about the wheel, they didn’t use it, except as toys.
Apparently it never occurred to them to have servants or slaves pull
wheeled vehicles.
Ironically, the more primitive the native culture, the more resistant
it was to Eruopean conquest. This was proved time and again, from
Caribs on the coast of Venezuela to Apaches in Arizona and New Mexico.
The Spaniards found it much easier to replace the top layer of a fairly
sophisticated society with Spanish culture. Indians could accept a
Christian god as supreme since they had lost out to those who had
worshiped such a god. The situation was somewhat different in North
America where English colonists met natives who were primarily (though
not exclusively) hunter/gatherers. For reasons that will be seen in a later
chapter, the relationships between English and Indians quickly
degenerated from tentative cooperation into adversary hostility. The
tension was not helped by an Anglo culture, especially among Puritans,
who looked on Indians as creatures of Satan.
Some historians have compared the Western Hemisphere
civilizations to a delicate plant with shallow roots-easily denied the
ingredients necessary for independent survival, and caught by a growing
dependence on European products.
A Focus on the Aztecs
The origins of the Mexica people, better known as the Aztecs, are
shrouded in uncertainty. The prevailing folk belief is that they came south
from the Sonoran Desert region, from a place called Aztlan (a name that
has aroused modern controversial political and cultural debate). A
nomadic tribe, the Aztecs settled eventually in the Valley of Mexico amid
monuments left by earlier societies such as the Toltec. They arrived
sometime around 1200 A.D. or possibly a couple of hundred years earlier,
since the records are unclear. According to legend (not history), the
Aztecs were following a prediction that called for them to stop where they
26
beheld an eagle perched on a cactus, eating a serpent. This image appears
on Mexico’s national flag. However, the Aztecs told this story long after
they had come to power in Mexico. As will be noted below, the Aztecs
made the error of revising history to suit their myths.
At first the Aztecs were subservient to the other city-states living
around Lake Texcoco. As time went on they consolidated their power,
defeated other nations in war, and became the dominant force in the
region. By 1400 A.D. the Aztecs controlled all other peoples in the Valley
of Mexico. They were allied with two other lake city-states, the
Tlatlelolcans and the Xollocans, but the Aztecs ran the show. They
collected tribute (taxes) in the form of goods and services from their
subject city-states. Their method of conquest was simple: before making
war on a rival, the Aztecs would offer fairly generous terms for the rival.
If the Aztecs were refused, they gave a second chance to consider the
terms, and then a third. If the issue came to war, the Aztecs fought only
until the other tribe acknowledged defeat. They then set terms that were
much harsher than if no resistance had been given. The Aztecs urged the
losers to consider the surrender terms carefully and not complain later that
the terms were too harsh. It didn’t take long for rival city-states to realize
that life would be easier if they didn’t resist the Aztecs.
By the early 15th century the Aztecs were all-powerful in the
Valley of Mexico. They built a major city, Tenochtitlan, in the middle of
Lake Texcoco and connected it to the mainland with several causeways
that could easily be disconnected, making the city impregnable to attack.
Spanish descriptions of Tenochtitlan compared it more than favorably with
any city in Europe, and in many ways the cities of Europe came off
second-best, especially in cleanliness and a piped water system.
Despite their success, the Aztecs were self-conscious of their
nomadic origins that didn’t seem noble enough for their current
prominence. The ruling house therefore determined to establish their
legitimacy as the People of the Sun, and they did this by making a most
fateful decision: they destroyed all earlier records and wrote an “official”
history that used myth in place of truth. Aztec ancestry was glorified and
linked to the gods.
The peoples of the Valley of Mexico were polytheistic. Each citystate had its own god, but they acknowledged the panoply of gods
27
worshiped by other tribes. Some seventy gods were objects of worship,
arranged in a kind of power hierarchy with the most important gods being
the ones worshiped by the strongest tribes. Under this system, Aztec gods
were the most important and powerful:
the Aztec Sun God,
Huitzilopochtli, was elevated to major rank. Although subject tribes could
worship their own gods, they had to acknowledge the supremacy of
Huitzilopochtli.
Its symbol was the hummingbird, but this was
misleading. Huitzilopochtli was a god that demanded much from its
worshipers.
The greatest Aztec politician of the 15th century was Tlacaellel,
brother of one emperor, adviser to several others, and, unfortunately for
subject tribes, a man of good health who lived to age 98. Tlacaellel was
responsible for making Huitzilopochtli the dominant god, and it was
Tlacaellel who put human sacrifice on an assembly-line basis. A religious
fanatic or a ruthless politician, Tlacaellel made human sacrifice and ritual
cannibalism a regular ritual for worship of the Aztec Sun God.
So it was that the subject tribes had to come up with levies of
slaves for sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli. The number of sacrifices ran into
the thousands annually. Victims were lined up in a row that went down
the pyramid steps and beyond. The Aztecs viewed these sacrifices as a
great honor. Those chosen for special occasions were treated with
splendor for a year before the big date. Exceptionally good-looking
candidates might be singled out for the honor of being flayed. As Cortes
would find out (and use to his advantage) when he arrived in Mexico in
1519, subject tribes did not share the enthusiasm for human sacrifice as
did the Aztecs, especially since it might be their sons and daughters, not
only slaves, who could be selected for the levies.
Besides Huitzilopochtli, the Aztecs also worshiped other Valley of
Mexico gods and believed the stories about them. Second only to
Huitzilopochtli in the demand for human sacrifices was Tecazlipoca. A
story about Tecazlipoca proved critical to the Aztecs when word first came
about the Spaniards. Legends told of a quarrel between Tecazlipoca and
another god, Quetzalcoatl. Somehow Tecazlipoca tricked Quetzalcoatl
into disgracing himself, and he was forced into exile. However,
Quetzalcoatl vowed some day to return. According to the legends,
Quetzalcoatl had a fair skin and wore a beard--features that could also
28
describe the Spaniard and which made the Aztecs indecisive as to whether
the Spaniards were invaders or emissaries of Quetzalcoatl.
Captives taken in war provided many sacrifices for the Aztec gods;
but once the Lake Texcoco region was pacified, the Aztecs had to come up
with another method of obtaining sacrificial victims. They must certainly
have known of the reluctance of their subject tribes to meet the levies for
sacrifice. With no one daring to challenge the Aztecs through warfare,
what legitimate method could be used? Tlacaellel hit on the idea of what
became known as “flower wars.” These were mock wars with the subject
city-states in which the point was to take prisoners who then would serve
as sacrifices to the gods. Aztec participants were encouraged to fight well
and avoid capture, lest they too wind up on the altar.
Given the many accomplishments of the Aztecs, the worship of
bloodthirsty gods has attracted the attention of scholars who have tried to
understand and explain the Aztec preoccupation with gods who made such
extreme demands. Some scholars have described Aztec religious beliefs
as immature, comparing them to idol worship in the Old Testament. The
story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrific his son Isaac, until God
intervened, stands as a milestone in the evolution of religion: it isn’t
necessary to prove one’s devotion by sacrificing human beings. It is
interesting to note that Quetzalcoatl was considered a peace-loving god.
In rejecting him and accepting the story of his exile, the native peoples of
the Valley of Mexico may have made a pact with the devil, since the
Quetzalcoatl myth predicted his return and by inference a change, perhaps
an accounting, for their religious practices.
Another school of thought comes from a group called the Berkeley
demographers, led by scholars Woodrow Borah and Sherbourne F. Cook.
According to Borah and Cook, the Valley of Mexico’s population may
have been as high as 30 million, with no diseases to shorten life
expectancy (a situation that would change dramatically when the
Europeans showed up). The main food source, maize, was being
cultivated on every acre of arable land in the region. Should the crop fail,
a disastrous famine would result, and there appears to have been such
famines in the past. Thus the sacrifices might be seen as a form of
population control.
29
Aztec religious belief was very pessimistic in its outlook. The
Aztecs kept two calendars, one secular and one religious. The religious
calendar followed a cycle of eighteen months, twenty days to a month,
with five days left over at the end of the year. Those five days were a time
of anxiety and concern that the world was out of harmony until a new
year’s cycle could begin. There was also a 52-year cycle, and Aztecs
believed the world might end if something went wrong at the end of the
cycle. In one of history’s amazing coincidences, the Spanish arrival in
1519 occurred at the same time as the end of a 52-year cycle.
The Aztecs were a young enough nation to have some vertical
mobility. It was possible for someone to rise above his station through
valor in war, special talent as an artisan, or marrying well. There were
several classes in the hierarchy of Aztec society. The pipiltin constituted
the nobility. Children born to this class had to prove themselves worthy,
usually in battle. The macehualtin were the commoners. A macehuale
could advance to pipiltin status through bravery in war, but after three or
four failed attempts to kill or capture an enemy, he lost all chance to rise
above his station.
Merchants were a class unto themselves, traveling to the limit of
the Aztec Empire where the powerful chichimecas (hostile people)
prevented further expansion. There were also Aztec slaves. To be a slave
in Aztec society meant the person was not free but did have certain rights.
Money could be saved to purchase freedom. A family could sell a son into
slavery and then exchange that son for another. Aztecs loved gambling,
and an overeager bettor could become a slave on a losing bet. Such
servitude would be for a period of time, not for perpetuity (unless the
gambler was really desperate). The Aztecs saw slavery as a position, not
an inherent condition. However, slaves from subject tributes did not share
the rights held by Aztec slaves, and often they were used as tribute
payments and could end up as fodder for the sacrificial altar.
The Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, a vibrant language still spoken by
millions of people in Mexico today and even translated into the Roman
alphabet. As the dominant society in the Valley of Mexico, the Aztecs
imposed Nahuatl on their subject peoples, so that everyone spoke Nahuatl
as well as their own language. This language was also written down in
pictographic form, somewhat like Egyptian hieroglyphics. Notable also
30
was the quality of their arts in crafts, jewelry, gold, gems, and the
decorations made of colorful bird feathers.
Maize provided the basis of their agricultural economy. Its
cultivation was very intensive, and surplus production freed people from
farming to become priests, artisans-and idle nobles. Subject tribes
contributed maize as part of their tribute payments. Cacao beans served
both as beverage and as money, since people placed a value on it.
Tenochtitlan had a major market center complete with officials who
regulated commerce.
By the early 1500s the pipiltin class threatened to upend Aztec
society. Their large numbers required the Aztecs to expand and dominate
other peoples to work for them, but they had just about reached their
geographic limits. At their frontier the chichimecas were too strong to be
defeated. A huge bureaucracy ran the Aztec Empire. It kept detailed
records on tribute collections, transactions, and court litigations. But in its
very power the Aztec Empire had created enemies who wanted a chance to
get back at them. The Spaniards gave them that chance.
Other Societies of Native Peoples
If the Aztecs provide a case study of a “high” civilization in the
Western Hemisphere, so did the Inca Empire in South America whose
authority extended from Ecuador through Peru to Chile. In North
America, the Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley achieved a high
level of culture as shown by their complex earth constructions. These
were not properly appreciated until the 20th century provided the
opportunity for aerial views.
The range of native cultures in the Americas was wide enough to
include the Pueblo peoples who lived in homes constructed of adobe brick,
grew maize and other foods, and looked on war as a form of insanity. At
the other end were tribes existing at the most primitive levels as the only
means for survival in a hostile environment. In the grand scheme of
things, however, it didn’t matter to the Europeans where the native peoples
stood in the cultural spectrum of the Western Hemisphere. Depending on
time, place, and circumstance, they would be conquered, exploited, and
31
exterminated as befitted the prerogatives of Europeans who brought an
agenda that had little regard for native culture, language, crafts, or society.
32
For Further Reading
Adams, R.E.W. Prehistoric Mesoamerica (1991).
Berdan, Frances. The Aztecs of Central Mexico, An Imperial Society
(1982).
Coe, Michael. The Maya (1956).
Denevan, W.M., ed. The Native Population of the Americas in 1492
(1976).
Fagan, Brian. Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent
(2000).
Hagan, William T. American Indians (1961).
Gibson, Charles. The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule (1964).
Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. The Indian Heritage of America (1968).
Lanning, E.P. Peru Before the Incas (1967).
Moseley, M.E. The Incas and Their Ancestors (1992).
Washburn, Wilcomb.The Indian in America (1975).
33
CHAPTER 3:
THE SPANISH CONQUEST
It would be nice to read a history of the European encounter with
the peoples of the Western Hemisphere that tells us the meeting was
peaceful and mutually beneficial, that the Europeans were all nice guys,
tolerant of the religions, cultures, and social lives of the people they met,
and that everyone lived happily ever after. It would also be nice not to
have terrible diseases such as smallpox, malaria, bubonic plague, cholera,
and many other epidemics that killed millions of native peoples in the New
World in a tragedy unintended by the Europeans who brought those
diseases with them. Unfortunately, this is not the way history works. The
encounter between Europeans and indigenous peoples was confrontational
and, for both sides, trapped within the beliefs of their times.
In 1492 Europe consisted of nations run by monarchs who
governed lands by the authority of their inheritance. Nationality as we
understand it today was in its infancy. Germany and Italy as nations did
not then exist, nor would they for almost four hundred years. England
claimed land in France because Henry V had married a French princess
almost a century earlier. Spain and Austria worked out an alliance through
a double wedding, resulting ultimately in the rule of Carlos I of Spain who
happened also to control areas that spoke German, Dutch, Italian, and
French, as well as Spanish. The Catholic Church controlled European
religious belief; Martin Luther did not break with the Church for another
quarter century.
Spain had only recently emerged from the Reconquista, a
centuries-long war against the Muslims who had controlled the Iberian
Peninsula since the early 8th century. The war’s end left many veterans
inured to hardship and battle and only too willing to try their luck in a new
world. Younger men also answered the call to adventure. In many ways,
these men thought in medieval terms, for such thinking still had influence
as the Middle Ages gave way to the Renaissance, and in the next century
to the upheaval of the Protestant Reformation. The men who would be
called the Conquistadores did not trouble themselves about new
developments in literature and science, though they were interested in any
technological improvements in firearms and cannon.
34
For almost thirty years after Columbus’s first voyage Spanish
explorers knocked around the Caribbean area, founding settlements on
Hispanola, Cuba, and other islands. Their main goal still was to get to the
riches of the “Indies,” and they believed they could get to China which
according to their maps stretched much farther east than it actually did. So
they persisted in calling the New World the Indies (later geographers
would correct the error somewhat by the terms East Indies [now
Indonesia] and West Indies [the Caribbean]). The initial colonization of
the Caribbean islands quickly decimated the native inhabitants. The
Spaniards found these peoples generally docile and easy to command; the
culture shock of these alien beings with their terrible weapons may have
had something to do with native paralysis. In any event, the simultaneous
demands of the Spaniards that the natives produce gold (of which there
was little on the islands) and food, along with the introduction of diseases
to which the indigenous people had no immunities, left the Spaniards with
few people to exploit. The gap would eventually be filled by their
importing African slaves and establishing sugar cane and tobacco
plantations. In the meantime, other areas awaited conquest.
The Spanish Crown commissioned adventurers at their own
expense to take over territory largely unknown, in return for which the
Crown would get the royal quinto-one-fifth of all profits from production
of gold and silver. The Crown was also thinking in medieval terms,
valuing gold and silver as bullion, not as capital for investment. In the
long run this short-sighted view of precious metal would cost Spain dearly.
Meanwhile, the possibility of gold became an obsession for Spanish
explorers. The contrast between Spanish avarice and the policies of
Portugal and, later, England and France, is dramatic. Other European
nations would establish trading posts to exchange the goods of Europe for
the products of Africa, Asia, and North America. Imperialist conquest of
those areas would eventually take place some four centuries later, but
without the dramatic success scored by Spain in Mexico and Peru.
The Spanish successes shaped the Americas far differently than in
other regions where Europeans colonized native peoples, though the
imperialism of the 19th century would leave a similar mark in Africa and
Asia. The most obvious example would be the imposition of European
languages on the Americas and the relegation of native languages to the
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tribes that spoke them and few others. Of all the nations of the Americas
to this day, only Paraguay has a native language, Guarani, coequal with a
dominant European language, Spanish.
Early efforts at expanding operations out of the Caribbean met with
little success and much failure. The Spaniards realized finally that island
Indians had not made the gold ornaments they wore. They must have
obtained them through trade from somewhere. But where? The Spaniards
matched their incorrect understanding of the geography of the region with
what they knew of Asian geography and came up with a correct conclusion
of sorts. They knew the Spice Islands lay to the south of a large land mass,
Asia. Whether the islands they had conquered were or were not the
Moluccas, there had to be a large land mass nearby. Explorers soon
reported such a mass did exist, in fact two of them, and knowledge would
build upon information until by the 1550s a map of the world could be
drawn that would be familiar in its outlines to modern eyes, even with
errors of scale and topography.
While the Spaniards were thus working out a geographic
understanding of the North American and South American continents, the
Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico were becoming increasingly alarmed by
reports of these alien invaders. It was at this point that the Aztecs became
trapped in their own hubris. They had destroyed their early records in
exchange for a mythical past that glorified them as supreme rulers over
other tribes. Now they had no choice but to trust in those myths. Emperor
Moctezuma II, hearing reports of white bearded men in the Caribbean,
believed they were emissaries of the god Quetzalcoatl, perhaps
Quetzalcoatl himself. Quetzalcoatl was known to have a beard, unusual
among the native peoples of the Americas. As an absolute ruler,
Moctezuma executed messengers who brought him bad news and priests
who failed to interpret his dreams or omens. Naturally, messengers and
priests were inclined to tell him what he wanted to hear in order to protect
their lives. If Moctezuma believed Quetzalcoatl was about to return, it
would be best not to disagree with him.
There were warning signs about the Spaniards that Moctezuma
chose to ignore. It became obvious from early contacts, and certainly
when Cortes had landed, that the Spaniards did not speak Nahuatl. And
surely the Aztecs must have known that the “emissaries” were not
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immortal. Over the previous twenty years the corpses of shipwrecked
Spaniards had been washed ashore along the east coast of Mexico. Instead
of thinking through the implications of these reports, the emperor
increased the human sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli and Tecazlipoca, which
meant the subject tribes had to produce more victims for the sacrificial
altar. And this meant that when the Spaniards arrived on the mainland,
they would find allies willing to be rid of Aztec rule.
Cortes and Moctezuma
There are some interesting alternatives, or might-have-beens, to the
Spanish conquest of the Aztecs. Hernando (sometimes spelled Fernando)
Cortes was not the first, nor even second, Spaniard to see Mexico. In 1517
Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba had discovered the Yucatan Peninsula
and seen the Mayan temples and pyramids. But the Mayans did not
appreciate Cordoba’s intentions to capture slaves, and they handed him a
disastrous defeat and mortal wounds. Cordoba survived long enough to
return to Cuba with a quantity of gold that only encouraged Diego de
Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, to send another expedition.
Juan de Grijalva, a kinsman of the governor, headed the
expedition. He followed Cordoba’s route from Yucatan along the coast
until he met one of Moctezuma’s officials, a tax collector named Pinotl.
The Spaniards traded green beads for Indian gold (students should note
that at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, visitors scramble madly for the bead
necklaces tossed at them in the nightly Mardi Gras parade, an activity that
tells us something is worth the value we place on it). Recognizing that the
Aztecs were a wealthy kingdom, Grijalva sent word back to Cuba that he
had successfully bartered for gold and requested permission to start a
colony.
Governor Velasquez was already planning another expedition, and
the gold he received from Grijalva only intensified his intentions. But he
passed over the somewhat cautious Grijalva as the leader of the new
expedition and instead assigned the task to Hernando Cortes, who had
been active in the Caribbean since 1504. Velasquez, in rejecting Grijalva
for the ambitious Cortes, had no idea what effect his choice would have on
history. Had Grijalva headed the expedition, it is possible that contact
37
with the Aztecs would have proceeded much more slowly, with trade
relationships established between Aztec and Spaniard not unlike what the
Portuguese were doing with African kingdoms. What happened under
Cortes, however, was conquest.
Velasquez came to distrust Cortes’s ambitions, but his second
thoughts about him came too late. In February 1519 Cortes sailed to Cuba
with 600 men under his command and a somewhat vague and imperfect
authorization to conquer the native peoples and colonize the region for
Spain. Good luck played an important part in helping Cortes achieve these
goals. Stopping at the island of Cozumel, Cortes picked up a Spanish
castaway, Jeronimo de Aguilar, who had been marooned after his ship
sank around 1511. Living among the Maya for the past eight years, he had
learned their language. Next Cortes skirmished with Indians on the
Tabasco coast and, when hostilities ended with a Spanish victory, he
obtained a Mexican girl, Malinche. Cortes named her Marina and made
her his interpreter and mistress.
For a time Aguilar and Malinche provided translations in the effort
to communicate with Aztec envoys. Cortes would say something in
Spanish to Aguilar who would repeat it in Mayan to Malinche, who then
said the message in Nahuatl to the Aztec. The response then came along
the line. Malinche quickly showed a talent for languages and soon was
fluent in Spanish. This eliminated Aguilar from the lineup and increased
Malinche’s importance to Cortes as a direct translator between Spaniard
and Aztec.
By April Cortes was in the harbor where he would found the town
of Vera Cruz, a settlement that actually violated and exceeded Velasquez’s
orders. Instead of a trade relationship, Cortes and his men determined to
go all-out for conquest. The creation of Vera Cruz was really a ploy by
which Cortes could claim on a legal technicality that he was now captain
general of an expedition to conquer and colonize. Aztec officials tried to
buy him off with precious gifts, but Cortes refused to be satisfied with
rubber sandals, turquoise mirrors, and jewelry. He wanted gold. Still in
awe of Cortes as a possible god, the Aztecs brought more gold. Cortes
impressed them by firing a cannon and showing them his ferocious mastiff
war dogs.
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Cortes quickly learned about the dissatisfaction of the tribes around
Lake Texcoco. He defeated the Tlaxcalans in a battle and then convinced
them to join him in an alliance against the Aztecs, as he did with other
tribes. Moctezuma, hearing of Cortes’s advance towards Tenochtitlan,
was by turns indecisive and determined to resist. Trapped by his beliefs,
he tried to appease Cortes with gifts in the hope that Cortes would not
come to the Aztec capital, not realizing that his naïve bribes only whetted
Cortes’s appetite for more gold. At last came their historic meeting.
Almost immediately afterward, the Spaniards kidnaped the emperor and
held him as a hostage.
Cortes’s luck held when he outwitted an expedition sent by
Velasquez to arrest him. While he was gone from Tenochtitlan, his
lieutenant, Pedro de Alvarado, became suspicious of Aztec activities and
massacred thousands of Aztec nobles and warriors during a religious
celebration. When Cortes returned to Tenochtitlan, he found the
Spaniards in a state of siege. The Aztec leaders deposed Moctezuma, and
when the emperor tried to speak to his people, they stoned him. Broken in
heart and body, Moctezuma died. Cortes had little choice but to attempt
an escape from the city. The Aztecs, previously in awe of the Spaniards
and their horses and war dogs, fought ferociously on the causeways
connecting the city to the mainland. A third of Cortes’s men and many of
his Indian allies died making the effort. Cortes is said to have wept for the
losses of his men under El arbol de la noche triste (the tree of the sad
night).
Cortes soon obtained reinforcements from Cuba and additional
thousands of Indians who were eager to topple the Aztecs. Now it was
Cortes who began a major siege in April 1521. By August many Aztecs
were sick, dying, or dead from European diseases, mainly smallpox, and
starvation. Cortes utterly destroyed Tenochtitlan and on its ruins began
the construction of Mexico City. Over time most of Lake Texcoco would
be drained. Some Aztecs managed to escape from the disaster and took
the idol of Huitzilopochtli with them to northern Mexico where they hid it
in a cave. The idol has never been found.
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Pizarro in Peru
If Cortes had more exhibited the character of a politician than an
explorer, Francisco Pizarro should be considered a gangster. A native of
Extremadura Province in Spain, Pizarro had spent some twenty years in
exploring and exploiting in the New World. He was the leader of four
brothers and in partnership with another conquistador, Diego de Almagro.
This group was involved in subduing Indians in Central America.
Around the time that Cortes was confronting Moctezuma, another
conquistador, Pedrarias Davila, was exploring the possibilities of Panama.
Hearing reports of gold in a land south along the Pacific Coast called
“Biru,” Davila recruited Francisco Pizarro to sail southward to confirm the
tales of gold. Pizarro, Almagro, and a third partner sailed from Panama in
1524 and 1526 and learned that indeed a kingdom to the south possessed
large amounts of gold and silver. Authorized by King Carlos I and with
the title of captain general (and a contract), Pizarro proceeded south in
December 1531, minus an angry Almagro who had not shared in the
contract’s allotment of promised rewards. Pizarro reached the Peruvian
coast early in 1532, accompanied by around 200 men and a hundred
horses. There the Spaniards learned of the Incas and, perhaps more
important, that the Inca Empire was embroiled in a civil war.
In 1526 Huayna-Capac, ruler of the Inca Empire, had died, possibly
from malaria or smallpox. If this were the case, then it marked the rapid
advance of contagious European diseases that ran well ahead of the
physical presence of the Europeans and was an indication of the virulence
of those diseases. Huayna-Capac left many sons and daughters, but his
son Huascar was supposed to inherit the throne. Atahualpa, Huascar’s
half-brother, disputed the claim, and a war broke out. Huascar was
eventually defeated and executed by Atahualpa’s forces. Atahualpa
proceeded to consolidate the empire in his favor, but other brothers were
potential rivals to the throne, and subject tribes were unhappy with the
political situation.
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The Inca (the word applied to the people and also to the ruler) was
at the top of a pyramid structure medieval in nature, the lower classes
owing tribute to the higher. Its society was similar to the Aztec-sedentary, large cities, a ruling class dominating subject peoples. The allpowerful Inca emperor had many wives and concubines. Everything he
did was carefully preserved, from his nail clippings to his bowel
movements. The Inca nobility lived in palaces and wore fine clothing.
Pedro Pizarro later wrote of feeling Atahualpa’s cloak “which was softer
than silk. I said to him, ‘Inca. Of what is a robe as soft as this made?’ He
explained that it was from the skins of vampire bats that fly by night in
Puerto Viejo and Tumbez and that bite the natives.”
An all-powerful, highly revered (though not believed divine) ruler;
magnificence that could include the clothing made from vampire bat skins;
wealth and treasure; all these and more fired the ambitions of the Pizarros
and their colleagues. Like Cortes, they had stumbled across an unstable
empire at an opportune moment. And they proceeded to make the most of
it.
The conquistadors sent a delegation to meet Atahualpa. The Inca
leader, having recently dealt with his half-brother Huascar, was traveling
toward the Inca capital at Cuzco when he heard about the strange white
men. He agreed to meet the Spaniards at the town of Cajamarca.
Atahualpa believed he had little to fear from a small force of some 200
men. Unlike Moctezuma, he did not think them divine beings. But he
badly underestimated their fighting power and thought the strange animals
(horses) would not fight at night. He therefore delayed his arrival until
almost sunset instead of the agreed-upon noontime, unwittingly providing
Pizarro with an advantage.
Pizarro arrived at Cajamarca first and carefully placed his men in
hidden positions. The date was November 16, 1532. When the Inca army
at last showed up the town appeared deserted. Pizarro sent out Father
Vicente de Valverde and an interpreter. Valverde spoke to Atahualpa
about Jesus Christ and the King of Spain, none of which made any sense
to the Inca emperor. Then the padre gave Atahualpa a Bible. Never
having seen a book before, Atahualpa didn’t know what it was, and threw
it on the ground. To Pizarro this act of sacrilege justified the surprise
attack he now launched.
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The Inca army vastly outnumbered the Spaniards, but it included
large levies of farmers who served as militia rather than trained soldiers.
Their weapons were mainly clubs and slings, and they had no steel armor.
Their use of the bow and arrow was poor. By contrast, the Spaniards were
well armed with steel weapons and motivated by certainties of purpose:
by God and for gold. Within minutes the Spaniards had taken Atahualpa
prisoner. They slew an estimated six thousand Incas as their leaders stood
paralyzed by the capture of their emperor. The Spaniards used their horses
as tanks, and their armor and steel swords made it very hard for the Incas
to kill them. Use of horses against a larger enemy force has usually been
very effective, especially when the enemy lacks weapons or the skill in
using them; witness the cossacks riding down the peasants in Russia or,
for that matter, mounted policemen in New York maintaining crowd
control.
Pizarro lodged Atahualpa in a large room that served as a cell.
Desperate to win his freedom, and made aware of the Spanish lust for
gold, the emperor offered to fill the room with gold and silver to a height
of nine feet. Pizarro agreed to the deal, and soon gold objects were
pouring in from all parts of the Inca Empire. At 1990 rates the value may
have been some $60 million. Unfortunately for Atahualpa, Pizarro had no
intention of keeping his part of the bargain. Despite being a prisoner,
Atahualpa still ruled the empire and communicated with his generals. The
Spaniards grew suspicious that Atahualpa was plotting for the Inca army to
rescue him. Rumors grew of an approaching army that could annihilate
the small Spanish force.
Pizarro’s lieutenants demanded that Atahualpa be executed.
Pizarro and a few others initially opposed the idea, but he went along with
it. They gave Atahualpa the opportunity to accept Christianity by being
baptised. He agreed and was garroted instead of being burned alive. This
execution was carried out on July 26, 1533. When King Carlos I learned
of the execution, he branded it as judicial murder, but he was far from
Peru, and the Pizarro brothers escaped punishment.
Pizarro then moved on to Cuzco, which he captured in November.
As with Cortes, Pizarro made good use of disaffected Inca nobles and
followers of Huascar who had no love for Atahualpa. After looting Cuzco
of its gold, the Spaniards took their plunder and, along with the ransom
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treasure, melted it all down into bullion for distribution among the
soldiers. Their failure to see the gold objects as having a value far beyond
gold and silver in bullion form is another measure of their medieval view
of life. Francisco sent the king’s share of the gold and silver to Spain
(which may have tempered Carlos’s anger about the murder of Atahualpa).
News of this gold sparked great excitement among Spanish adventurers
and prompted large numbers of them to go to the New World to get their
share of it.
Now politics predominated in Spanish dealings with the Inca.
Pizarro assumed the pose of protector of the “legitimate” Inca line, which
basically meant he took one brother over another. He first selected Tupac
Huallpa, a brother of Huascar, but he died of an illness in October 1533.
From the large number of brothers Pizarro then chose Manco Inca, and for
a time things settled down. In January 1535 Pizarro founded the city of
Lima on the Peruvian coast, preferring the location to Cuzco which sat at a
much higher elevation.
Then Almagro, Francisco’s old partner, showed up. He demanded
a share of the spoils, as did other latecomers. Pizarro managed
temporarily to persuade Almagro that a fortune awaited him to the south,
in Chile. In 1537 Almagro went to Chile, tramping around through desert
heat but finding no gold.
In the meantime Manco Inca soon tired of his role as puppet ruler.
He objected to humiliations the Spaniards put on him, escaped from Cuzco
early in 1536, and launched a rebellion against the erstwhile Spanish
rulers. The Incas besieged the Spaniards lodged at Cuzco but failed to
capture the city. Manco Inca and his rebel army then retreated into the
Andes Range, where he established a stronghold far from Spanish
authority. At this point a disgruntled Almagro returned to Peru, and
fighting broke out between the Pizarro and Almagro factions. In April
1538 Almagro lost a battle, was captured, and was executed by Hernando
Pizarro. Before his death, however, Almagro had crowned yet another
Inca brother, Paullu, as emperor. The opportunistic Paullu then switched
to Pizarro’s side after Almagro’s death. One measure of Inca discontinuity
may be the interesting statistic that Paullu had thirty known illegitimate
children in addition to the sons he had sired within marriage.
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Almagro left a son who thirsted to avenge his father. In July 1541
Almagrists cornered Francisco Pizarro and murdered him. By this time
Carlos I had enough of the vicious conduct of the conquistadors in Peru.
He sent Vaca de Castro, a judge, to Peru to establish rule along the lines of
Spanish government. Castro sided with the surviving Pizarros (brother
Juan had died in the siege of Cuzco) and condemned the younger Almagro
to death. The squabbles nonetheless continued, with Spaniards battling
Spaniards and the Incas breaking out in rebellion. In 1544 Viceroy Blasco
Nunez Vela arrived in Peru, armed with the New Laws of the Indies-a
belated attempt by the Spanish Crown to deal fairly with the Indians. The
laws abolished Indian slavery, regulated tribute, and banned forced labor.
Outraged by this challenge to their hard-won authority, the
conquistadors, now led by Gonzalo Pizarro, revolted against the viceroy’s
rule. At first Gonzalo was very successful. In a battle near the city of
Quito his forces defeated and killed Viceroy Nunez Vela. For a time it
seemed that Gonzalo might become the king of Peru. But he was no
match for the Spanish bureaucracy. A new emissary from Spain, Pedro de
la Gasca, arrived and said the New Laws were for the time being
suspended. Pardons and rewards would be given to rebels who turned
themselves in. Gonzalo’s army shrank, the rebellion collapsed, and
Gonzalo was executed.
Political problems continued in Peru until the 1570s. Not until
1569 and the arrival of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo did peace and
stability come to Peru. Manco Inca and his successors continued to resist
Spanish authority until 1572 when an expedition reached their mountain
fortress. The last Inca emperor, Tupac Amaru, was captured and taken to
Cuzco, where he was beheaded. Two centuries later a descendant of the
Inca rulers, calling himself Tupac Amaru II, led a revolt against Spanish
rule. Like his ancestor, this forerunner of Peruvian independence was
captured and executed.
Other Spanish Conquests
The success of Cortes in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru led other
conquistadors to search for Indian civilizations that could provide them
with their own quest for gold. In 1536 Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada
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headed an expedition up the Magdalena River in what is now Colombia.
Quesada had two motives for the difficult trek: gold and finding a
possible route to the Pacific Ocean, the latter quest due to the lack of
knowledge about the size of the South American continent. He may have
failed in the geographic goal, but he struck gold when his expedition
reached the land of the Chibcha. Like the nations Pizarro and Cortes had
encountered, the Chibcha lived in towns, grew crops, had a hierarchical
leadership, and made ornaments from gold. The Spaniards defeated the
Chibcha in battle and looted them of their gold and emeralds. They also
founded a settlement, Santa Fe de Bogota, the future capital of Colombia.
This third stroke of fortune inspired the conquistadors to believe
the wildest stories imaginable about lost cities and golden kingdoms. To
the north, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado pursued the “Seven Cities of
Gold” all the way across North America to modern Kansas before turning
back. In South America, the prime legend was of El Dorado, the “Golden
Man,” so-called because, it was said, this chief had nothing better to do
than have his body painted with gold dust, which he then proceeded to
wash off in a sacred lake. Apart from the religious sacrilege, the Spaniards
thought of all that gold dust thrown away. Even the English came to
believe in El Dorado, most notably Sir Walter Releigh in the early 1600s.
By that time Spain had staked out a claim for New Granada that
encompassed Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador. The boundary
between New Granada and the Guianas, the territory Releigh wanted to
explore in search of El Dorado, was not clearly defined.
King James I of England wanted no quarrel with the Spaniards.
Raleigh promised that if his expedition provoked hostilities with the
Spaniards he would forfeit his head. The king accepted the deal, and off
Raleigh went, extolling the “Rich and Beautiful Empire of Guiana,”
recruiting people for his expedition with tales of lost Inca treasure as well
as El Dorado. The expedition found no empire or treasure, but it did
provoke the Spanish, and Raleigh, a man of honor, turned himself in and
was executed. The term “El Dorado” would come to be used in gold rush
communities as a symbol of fabulous but elusive wealth.
Raleigh should have known better. By the early 1600s even the
Spanish Empire was finding it more profitable to exploit what was already
at hand rather than chase after will o’the wisps. In the 1540s, however,
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with three major successes, the Spaniards were still pursuing whatever
possibilities could make them rich. In 1539 one expedition got far more
than it bargained for. Hearing of an area lush with cinnamon trees,
Gonzalo Pizarro led an expedition from Quito (now the capital of
Ecuador) across the Andes Range. They found a limited quantity of
cinnamon, but nothing that would yield a profit. The local Indians wanted
nothing more than to be left alone. Through interpreters they told the
Spaniards what they wanted to hear, spinning tales about rich kingdoms
somewhere to the east, anything to get them to go away.
In the futile search for the nonexistent kingdoms, Francisco de
Orellana, one of Pizarro’s lieutenants, went foraging with a small group of
would-be conquistadors. Descending a stream, they found its current too
swift to allow them to return. Down they went in two crude boats, going
from one tributary connecting to a larger one, until they found themselves
floating down a huge river. At one point, where the Napo River flows into
the Amazon River, the party divided, Orellana leaving Sanchez de Vargas
and Father Gaspar de Carvajal who had argued Orellana should try to
rejoin Pizarro. Orellana said the return effort was imposible and continued
down the Amazon. Sanchez and Carvajal, after enduring incredible
hardships, did get back to Pizarro. The main party then struggled back to
Quito, around eighty survivors out of an original group of 400.
Meanwhile, Orellana kept heading downstream and eastward,
sometimes fighting Indians on the banks of the river, other times enjoying
their hospitality. He was somewhat amazed to find Indian women fighting
alongside their men. Eventually-and after some 2,500 miles-they came out
of the mouth of the river and into the Atlantic Ocean. After considerable
difficulties they reached a Spanish settlement in New Granada. No gold,
no kingdoms, but he had to say something about his epic trip, especially
since Carvajal had denounced his decision and Pizarro considered him a
traitor. Orellana reached into the by now large grab-bag of Spanish beliefs
in legends and myths, and he came up with a name for the great river he
had descended: the Amazon, paying tribute to those fierce Indian women.
Spaniards continued to search for rich Indian kingdoms, but had to
settle for much less. An ambitious effort along the Rio de la Plata saw the
founding of Buenos Aires in 1536, but lack of supplies and food, and
Indians who effectively fought them, soon ended the settlement. The
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colonists moved a thousand miles upriver and founded Asuncion, now the
capital of Paraguay, where the Guarani Indians were friendlier and they
could cultivate crops. Buenos Aires would not be resettled until 1580.
Through a combination of luck and ambition, some Spaniards had
struck it rich in Mexico, Peru, and New Granada. Many more had died in
these attempts, and still others would perish in fruitless expeditions to
chase down imaginary kingdoms, fountains of youth, lost cities, cities of
gold, golden men, Amazon women, and whatever else seemed even
remotely plausible. In these efforts mortality ran high and knowledge
would be acquired only with difficulty and sacrifice. Gradually the
outlines of the continents and their interiors, their lakes and mountains,
plains and deserts, rivers and climate, would form a body of knowledge for
Europeans who would find the information more useful than tales of El
Dorado.
47
For Further Reading
Bernhard, Brendan. Pizarro, Orellana and the Exploration of the Amazon
(1991).
Hemming, John. The Conquest of the Incas (1970).
Hemming, John. The Search for El Dorado (1978).
Kirkpatrick, F.A. The Spanish Conquistadores (1968).
Leon-Portilla, Miguel. The Broken Spears (1992).
Padden, R.C. The Hummingbird and the Hawk (1967).
Stirling, Stuart. The Last Conquistador (1999).
Thomas, Hugh. Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old
Mexico (1994).
Varon, Rafael. Pizarro and His Brothers (1997).
Wood, Michael. Conquistadors (2000).
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CHAPTER 4:
EXPLORING THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
The dramatic conquests of Mexico and Peru by Spain overshadow
the many expeditions that ended in failure and death. Cortes and Pizarro
were more like politicians and gangsters than explorers, yet they also
explored territory unknown to Europeans. They knew the men who went
out and never returned. It is therefore necessary to define some terms and
see which men fit into the categories defined by those terms.
 Exploration. In its simplest sense, and to borrow from “Star Trek:
the Next Generation,” the term means “to boldly go where no one has
gone before.” Of course, this is a Eurocentric definition, since
indigenous peoples had already gone there.
Motivation for
exploration may include a variety of intentions, both positive and
negative: greed, trade, conquest, knowledge.
 Conquest. Conquerors defeat the resistance of the people they meet
who don’t want them to be there, much less submit to their authority.
 Colonization. Countries send people to the conquered or explored
areas to rule over, live with, and ultimately (to some degree) merge
with the conquered/colonized peoples.
Settlement. Settlement provides the opportunity to create viable living
places for people who want to make a new life for themselves and to bring
up their children among new opportunities. Settlements may be created
among conquered peoples, at the edge of a frontier beyond which the
native peoples are not conquered, or within a conquered area at a place no
longer threatened by reprisals from conquered people.
Some of the most famous of the explorers and conquerors may fit
into more than one category, and where they are placed may cause debate.
Still, it helps to understand that labeling someone a “conqueror” who was
actually a “colonizer” confuses a discussion about the person unless one is
prepared to do more than accept a superficial description about that
person. Here are some suggested categories and who might fit into them:
 Explorer/Discoverer: Columbus, Drake, Magellan
 Conqueror (conquistador): Cortes, De Soto, Pizarro, Alvarado
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
Colonizers: viceroys, people who obtained positions as major or
minor government officials; the people who worked for them
 Settlers: the people who came from the old country to the new in
search of opportunities and a better life
 Pioneers: the first generation of settlers in a new area
 Immigrants: later generations of settlers
The image of Spaniards, English, French, or some other European
force coming to the Western Hemisphere in strength for conquest is very
inaccurate. In almost all cases, Europeans took tentative steps, endured
considerable hardships, and had many fatalities. They persevered because
of their ambition, determination, and greed. They unintentionally brought
diseases that decimated the indigenous peoples they encountered; but they
also brought plants and animals that thrived in the new lands and created
an economy that is of major importance to our time.
The “Age of Discovery/Exploration” is actually a series of periods
since the 15th century that includes exploration, conquest, colonization,
and settlement down through the 19th century, as well as a search for
scientific knowledge that continues in our own time. Different areas of the
world were explored at different times by different nations. Europeans
explored Africa’s interior centuries after the exploration of the Western
Hemisphere continents. The interior of Brazil remained largely unknown
until the 20th century. As late as 1914 ex-President Theodore Roosevelt
met his match in an arduous effort to trace the source of the River of
Doubt in Brazil.
We are taught in school that the world is round, that the earth is a
planet in a solar system that is one of billions in a galaxy we call the Milky
Way, and that there are billions (or millions, or trillions, whatever) of
galaxies. Nevertheless, we still speak of “sunrise” and “sunset” and use
such terms as “the four corners of the earth” or “to the ends of the earth”
as if the earth had some shape other than spheroid. We are not that far
removed from the distinctions between alchemy and chemistry, astrology
and astronomy, numerology and mathematics, or, for that matter, myth,
legend, and history. Students may not know that Columbus made four
voyages, but they know their sign of the Zodiac.
Several reasons motivated 15th-century exploration. The most
obvious was wealth--exploring the unknown lands that lay between
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Europe and the Far East and to recapture the trade the Turks had disrupted.
Geographic knowledge would make the search for wealth more efficient.
It would also put one nation ahead of another, since no one was about to
share that knowledge with any rivals. The very existence of the Western
Hemisphere prompted exploration; well into the 16th century, Europeans,
led by Spain, believed the Americas an obstacle to the wealth of the Far
East. Once the wealth of the Americas was recognized, it promoted
exploration to find areas there that would yield it.
For the initial age of exploration, an ocean voyage itself was the
first peril. Prior to 1492, the accepted mode of travel was to keep an eye
on the coastline. Columbus’s trans-Atlantic crossing involved new
challenges. Extensive time at sea seemed to cause a baffling disease,
scurvy, which debilitated sailors and eventually killed them. Long after
the benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables to combat scurvy became
known, explorers still suffered from the disease through stubborn
persistence in ignoring its warning signs: the teeth fell out, gums
blackened, muscles ached, and energy left the body, and then death.
Vitamin C was not discovered until the early 20th century.
The open sea presented other frightful perils, especially in the north
Atlantic where severe storms smashed wooden sailing ships like
matchsticks. Boreworms loved to eat their way into wooden hulls until the
ships became unseaworthy (a euphemism for the fact that such ships
would sink); plating hulls with copper or iron finally solved the problem.
As for navigation instruments, to go anywhere required knowledge of
position and direction-where one was and where one was going. This
wasn’t easy to calculate on the open sea. European seamen had the
magnetic compass that told them where north was, but nothing about
where they were. Celestial navigation-figuring out one’s location by sun,
moon, or stars-was a complicated mathematical process that often as not
was inaccurate. The quadrant, a device used for measuring an angle off a
circle, offered some help, as did an astrolabe, an instrument that in various
versions dated to the ancient Greeks. Apart from mathematical errors,
celestial navigation was vulnerable to clouds, fog, rain, mist, and haze, all
or any of which rendered instruments useless.
In the 16th century Gerhard Mercator (1512-1594) developed his
Mercator projection system of putting a globe on a flat surface, an idea that
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with variations in projection is still widely used, as in classroom wall
maps. The sextant, developed in 1730, was useful for latitude and
longitude by measuring altitudes of celestial bodies. The main problem
for navigation was calculating longitude-the meridian, vertical lines on the
map (horizontal, latitude lines are called parallels).
15th-century
instruments could figure out latitude, but longitude calculations involved
complex mathematical formulas that took hours to work out and were
subject to error. For longitude, the challenge was to combine time and
distance to pinpoint location.
The math is simple enough. The earth is round, and its
circumference is a circle. A circle has 360 degrees. There are 24 hours in
a day, so if you divided 360 by 24 you get 15 degrees for each hour of
travel. With the circumference of the earth a known distance of about
24,000 miles, 15 degrees is about 960 miles. Divide each degree into 60
“geographic” minutes and you get about 16 miles to a minute. Divide the
minute into 60 seconds, and your location is calculated to about ¼ mile.
So theoretically a correct calculation of longitude can bring you within a
quarter mile of where you are, or knowing where you want to go.
Unfortunately, no clock of the time was consistently accurate. A
few seconds’ discrepancy could put a ship miles off course and on the
rocks (which wrecked shps and took lives). Inventor John Harrison spent
decades perfecting the world’s first chronometer, finally approved by
Parliament in 1761. Harrison had to deal with humidity, breakable
springs, keeping the device level, and other complications, but he did it,
and he did so despite the conservative views of the British Navy and
stubborn scientists who preferred celestial navigation. From Harrison’s
invention we also have modern time zones based on the Prime Meridian in
Grenwich, England, which is zero degrees longitude, from which the
world is divided into 24 time zones.
The very idea of the earth being measured by degrees challenged
the best thinkers of the Age of Discovery. Italian author Umberto Eco, in
his novel The Island of the Day Before, describes the conundrum that
plagued the ideas of time and distance: a ship sails down the coast of
Africa, then east through the Indian Ocean and into the Pacific. If it goes
far enough, it crosses what we today call the International Dateline. Does
the ship go backward in time? Does a ship sailing westward from Europe
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lose a day? Where does the day go? To use a modern example, the
Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, “a date which will
live in infamy,” said President Franklin Roosevelt. But in Japan, on the
other side of the Dateline, the date was December 8.
Then there was the case of the “lost” Solomon Islands. In 1568
Alvaro de Mendaria de Negra, sailing for Spain, found a group of islands
in the South Pacific. Believing the area wealthy, he named the islands
after King Solomon in the Old Testament, and reported his find when he
returned to Spain. Other explorers, however, couldn’t find the islands
because without knowledge of their longitude, they were impossible to
locate. Eventually Mendaria’s report became legendary and unbelieved.
Not until 1768-200 years later-did a French expedition under Louis de
Bougainville rediscover the Solomon Islands.
Beyond the problems of calculating latitude and longitude, voyages
of exploration often had to deal with unreliable crews. Merchants,
investors, and governments considered the ordinary seamen a necessary
evil, largely uneducated, and superstitious. The captain’s rule was
absolute because mutiny was such a serious crime. Sailors knew that on a
protracted voyage it was certain there would be a high rate of illness and
large loss of life.
If sailors were unreliable, what about the reception the explorers
would get on meeting the peoples of an unknown land? Not every landfall
had docile natives who could be easily conquered as Columbus had done.
The Caribs used poison darts and ambushes, and they practiced ritual
cannibalism on their captives. When Magellan encountered the Marianas
Islands, he named them the Ladrones (Spanish for thieves) because, he
claimed, they stole whatever the Spaniards hadn’t nailed down.
Yet another problem for explorers was the reliability of their maps.
Columbus’s first voyage baffled European mapmakers and
mathematicians. How could he have reached Asia and returned in so short
a time? Even as realization slowly grew that Columbus hadn’t done so,
mapmakers still distorted world maps to reconcile his claims. They
stretched China far to the east and blended it with North America so that
“Cathay” was just northwest of Florida. Since countries acquiring hard
facts had no inclination to share the details with others, geographical errors
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persisted, causing hardship and death for those who had to find things out
the hard way.
Eurocentric maps perpetuated mistakes that complicated the
planning for new expeditions. One of the most notorious instances of
persistent error was the view that California was an island. This error,
popularized early in the 17th century, overturned the earlier correct view.
From the 1620s to as late as 1740 California baffled anyone who looked at
European maps published during that period: sometimes an island,
sometimes a peninsula. Regardless of what on-site explorers and colonists
said, European cartographers still reprinted the old mistakes.
European mapmakers hated to see large blank spots on their maps,
so they filled them in with mountains, lakes, and rivers. In their defense
the mapmakers claimed they were only doing what explorers expected
them to do, since explorers believed that certain topographical features
were out there, as well as Atlantis, Shangri-La, the Strait of Anian, the
Kingdom of Prester John, and other fanciful creations. Ship pilots and
navigators, who only recorded what they observed, made the best maps,
but such information was not marketable to the public unless the
cartographer filled in the empty spaces.
Additionally, countries tended to exaggerate their own territorial
claims on maps, invariably at the expense of rival claimants.
Disagreement over boundaries could lead either to treaties or wars to settle
the matter. Students need to be aware that historical atlases are misleading
as well because they impose modern geographic outlines on historic events
instead of the way explorers saw the terrain-incomplete, vague, and often
inaccurate.
Magellan’s Voyage
Students will often report that in the third or fourth grade they
learned that Columbus discovered America “because he wanted to prove
the world was round.” The statement offers an interesting non sequitur.
Whether Columbus discovered, encountered, or ran into America is not
relevant to whether “he proved the world is round,” because he sailed
across the Atlantic Ocean, not all the way around the planet. The first true
circumnavigation of the world occurred between 1519 and 1521, by
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Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer in the service of Spain. Unlike
Columbus, Magellan had been to Asia, sailing around Africa to the
Moluccas and Spice Islands (now the area of Indonesia and Singapore).
Disagreement over finances with King Emanuel of Portugal brought
Magellan to Spain in 1517. He proposed a voyage to the “real” Indies by
sailing around the largely unknown mass of South America and west to the
Moluccas. This interesting idea would put him into competition with the
Portuguese whose contact with the Far East was around Africa. In effect,
Magellan proposed to do for Spain what Columbus had promised but not
done-sail west to China. The Western Hemisphere was but an obstacle to
the main goal.
On September 20, 1519, Magellan set sail with five ships, reaching
South America in November. By 1520 the little fleet was exploring the
Rio de la Plata and the possibility, soon disavowed, that it might lead to
the South Sea (recently noted by Vasco Nunez de Balboa at Panama),
better known today as the Pacific Ocean. The expedition was then stuck in
bad weather at Port San Julian, a lonely outpost, for six months. A ship
was wrecked; a mutiny broke out. Magellan then led the four remaining
ships into the Strait of Magellan; the trip took 38 days to cover only 330
miles, a most difficult passage because of contrary winds and storms.
They finally sailed out of the strait into a vast ocean so calm that Magellan
named it the “Pacific,” on November 28, 1520.
Now came the long voyage across the Pacific Ocean and a growing
sense of the extent to which water covered the planet. On March 6, 1521,
Magellan arrived at the Marianas Islands, and on April 7 he reached Cebu
in the Philippines. Magellan made the fateful decision of siding with one
local ruler against another and on April 27, 1521, he was killed while
trying to impose the Catholic religion on a rival chief. Juan Sebastian del
Cano, the second in command, went around Africa and reached Seville on
September 6, 1522. Of the original 265 crew members, only 35 made it
back, and only one ship, the Victoria, remained of the original five. But
the Victoria brought a cargo of spices that paid the expenses of the
expedition.
Magellan’s voyage proved of tremendous significance to explorers
and cartographers. Discarded was Ptolemy’s perception that the earth was
mostly land; now it was realized the ratio was reversed. People believed
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the southern part of the Strait of Magellan was connected to Antarctica,
and for the next century they would cross from Atlantic to Pacific through
the dangerous passage (Francis Drake would make a notable voyage
through it fifty years after Magellan). Not until the early 17th century
would Dutch seamen show it was easier to go around Cape Horn. Spain
decided the Strait of Magellan was not a practical route to the East Indies
and sold its Moluccan interests to Portugal. But forty years after
Magellan’s voyage, Spain colonized the Philippines, naming the islands
after King Philip II, and made it an important trade center for Spain in
Asia.
So Magellan gets the credit for “proving the world was round”
since at the time of his death he had completed a full circle of his travels,
if one counts his earlier visit to the Far East by way going around Africa.
Spain also occupied the strategic island of Guam, formally annexing
Magellan’s discovery in 1565. Any dispute between Spain and Portugal
over these claims ended in 1580 for the time being as the Portuguese royal
line died out and Philip II became the ruler of both countries, a situation
that would continue until 1640. Spain held the Magellan discoveries for
more than 300 years. After the Spanish-American War in 1898 Guam and
the Philippines became United States territories.
Colonization of the Philippines also set up a trade connection
between the Philippines and Mexico. In 1565 Andres Urdaneta made the
round trip from Acapulco to Manila and back in 129 days. On the return
voyage Urdaneta found westerly winds in the north Pacific and created a
feasible trade route between Asia and the Western Hemisphere.
The Search for the Northwest Passage
Another fateful consequence of Magellan’s expedition stemmed
from a belief of the time that geography was symmetrical: since Magellan
had found a southwest passage around or through South America, it
seemed reasonable to geographers of the 16th century that a “northwest
passage” must provide a way past the North American continent. From
the late 16th century well into the 19th century, one expedition after
another sailed to the Arctic, usually to suffer terrible hardships or to meet
an unpleasant end.
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Two Englishmen contributed greatly to the misunderstanding of
the Arctic region. Humphrey Gilbert obtained a charter from Queen
Elizabeth in 1578 to plant a colony in the area of Newfoundland, in
northeastern Canada. With financial backing, Gilbert sailed across the
Atlantic, only to experience one mishap after another. Spaniards stopped
his first effort. In 1583 he led a fleet of five ships to Newfoundland and
managed to start a colony at St. John’s on Newfoundland. It failed to
prosper and was soon abandoned. Gilbert himself died when his ship sank
during a storm.
Martin Frobisher penetrated further north, seeking the Northwest
Passage. He made it as far as the eastern tip of Hall Island (named for a
later explorer) and claimed it for England. He also pioneered in navigating
Frobisher Strait, though a glance at a modern map reveals this was only a
beginning in attempting a passage. Frobisher Strait turned out to be an
inlet as explorer Charles Francis Hall discovered in 1861.
Frobisher’s biggest problem was his willingness to believe what he
thought he saw. On his three voyages between 1576 and 1578, he claimed
that a navigable passage existed to the Pacific Ocean. More to the point,
to attract exploiters to the area, he claimed to have found “ore” that
contained gold. He brought back some 200 tons of this ore on his second
voyage. It turned out that the “ore” consisted of iron pyrite, or fool’s gold,
but the seeds of avarice had been planted. Later explorers would often risk
their lives for more than acquiring geographical knowledge.
Another Englishman, Henry Hudson, believed Frobisher’s stories
about the Northwest Passage and in 1607 persuaded the Muscovy
Company of England that he could reach Cathay by going straight across
the top of the world. He managed to reach 80 degrees North but had to
turn back because his ship was in poor condition. In 1608 Hudson tried
again to reach China, this time going east above Russia. The ice again
defeated him. At this point the Muscovy Company gave up. Hudson
found employment with Dutch entrepreneurs and explored today’s New
York Harbor, giving his name to the Hudson River and laying groundwork
for the founding of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam a few years later.
In 1609 Hudson again tried to make the Northwest Passage, this time
backed by some English merchants. Hudson made it into the huge bay that
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bears his name, but that was as far as he got. A mutinous crew put him
and a few others ashore and left them there. His exact end is unknown.
In 1619 Jens Munk of Denmark attempted the Northwest Passage.
His effort was done in by scurvy that killed 61 of the 64 men in the crew.
Survivor Monk’s description of the effects of scurvy bears quoting:
As regards the symptoms of the illness which had fallen upon us, it
was a rare and extraordinary one. All the limbs and joints were so
miserably drawn together, with great pains in the loins, as if a
thousand knives were thrust through them. The body, at the same
time, was blue and brown as when one gets a black eye; and the
whole body was quite powerless. The mouth also was in a very
bad and miserable condition, as all the teeth were loose and we
could not eat any victuals.
After Munk, more English and French explorers tried their luck, far
into the 19th century. Bit by bit the Arctic map was filled in, often with
names of explorers who died in their attempt. Much of this effort was
based on a fallacious belief in the Open Polar Sea, also called the
Paleocrystic Sea, an allegedly ice-free sea north of the polar pack. If a ship
could penetrate the pack, it could go to the Pacific. Such geographic
fantasies sparked the imaginations of writers such as Jules Verne and
Edgar Rice Burroughs, but they could and did prove deadly to any explorer
who believed in them. The worst disaster in Arctic exploration was to the
Franklin expedition of 1845, in which all 129 men perished-a fact not
known until many years later and with the subsequent loss of life to many
explorers who went in search of them.
By the 1870s the impossibility and nonexistence of a practical
Northwest Passage was finally evident. The Arctic Ocean could have
straits that were free of ice one year and blocked the next. Once this was
realized, attention shifted to trying to be the first to reach the North Pole,
90 degrees North, the top of the world. This achievement may or may not
have been done by Robert Peary in 1909, and controversy about his claims
continues to this day. 20th-century explorations include the illfated effort
of the dirigible Italia in the late 1920s. Finally, in July 1954 a Royal
Canadian ship, the HMCS Labrador, made the Northwest Passage. The
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ship was equipped with 12,000 horsepower diesel electric motors. The
following year, the U.S. atomic submarine Nautilus made the crossing
under the ice. A few individuals have since reached the North Pole, one
using a snowmobile, but these hardy adventurers were helicoptered out
after their achievement, making unnecessary the arduous and dangerous
trip back over ice to their starting point.
Spanish Explorations in the 16th Century
In the early 16th century Spanish explorers did a lot of island- and
coastal-hopping in the Caribbean area. Those who survived gained
experience and an increased desire for gold. The medieval fixation on
gold for its own sake would cost the Spaniards dearly as other nations
developed a more sophisticated understanding of the economics of world
trade. Among the unfortunate explorers who did not live to tell the tale
were Ponce de Leon, who made two trips to Florida, 1513 and 1521, in
search of a legendary “Fountain of Youth.” All he found were alligators
and poisonous snakes, and he died in his second attempt to reach his
illusive goal. Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in
1513 and, facing southerly, named the vast ocean he saw the South Sea.
Alas for Balboa, his political rivals arrested him on trumped-up charges
and executed him. In 1528 Panfilo de Narvaez attempted to set up a
colony along the Gulf Coast of Florida but only succeeded in losing the
lives of almost all of the 600 men who had accompanied him.
The untimely ends of Ponce de Leon, Balboa, and Narvaez are only
representations of hundreds more who went on entradas-expeditions to
unknown areas-who never returned or else came back with little to show
for their efforts. Still, the Spaniards persisted in their belief that Fortune’s
Wheel might yet turn in their favor as it had done for Cortes and Pizarro
(conveniently forgetting that many men under their leadership had died).
The opportunity for riches that seemed to be out there next arose from the
arrival of a most unexpected and unusual explorer-Alvaro Nunez Cabeza
de Vaca.
De Vaca was one of the few survivors of the disastrous Narvaez
expedition. With three other companions, one of them an African slave
named Estevanico, de Vaca spent some seven years trying to get back to a
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Spanish settlement. He traveled through what is today Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas before coming to Mexico. At times the
four men were prisoners of an Indian tribe, other times treated as shamans
(medicine men). When at last they contacted Spaniards they were hardly
recognizable as European Christians-clad in a few rags, skin darkened
from the sun, hair matted. The Spaniards were “dumbfounded at the sight
of me, strangely dressed and in company with Indians,” said de Vaca.
“They just stood there staring for a long time.” De Vaca had endured a
terrible school of experience to learn just how little his compatriots knew
of the North American continent. Stories had been circulating of the
“Seven Cities of Gold,” including a town, Cibola, with walls of gold. De
Vaca doubted the existence of these cities, but young and ambitious men
believed what they wanted to hear, and they didn’t want to hear de Vaca’s
observations on what the unknown lands were really like.
Shortly before de Vaca returned to New Spain, the first viceroy to
govern the territory, Antonio de Mendoza, arrived at Mexico City.
Mendoza was a very competent and politically savvy official who knew
how to deal with conquistadors who cared little for bureaucracies and
outside rule. He sent Pedro de Alvarado down to Guatemala to put down
an Indian uprising. When Alvarado was killed, Mendoza claimed
ownership of Alvarado’s small fleet of ships on the Pacific side of Mexico.
Around this time Hernando Cortes had sent a ship across the Gulf of
California (also called the Sea of Cortes) to confirm reports of an island.
The island turned out to be an extension of a peninsula, and news of this
geographic discovery aroused considerable excitement.
Many Spaniards had either read (or had read to them) a novel first
published in 1510, Las Sergas de Esplandian, by Garci Ordonez de
Montalvo. The story was a potboiler of crusaders fighting Muslims, but
one chapter described a land called California, ruled by Queen Califia and
her Amazon women. Word soon spread that the island to the west was the
“island of California,” and Corte and his followers wanted very much to
repeat their Aztec conquest and gain new victories. Viceroy Mendoza,
however, had other plans. He wanted to bring order and stability to New
Spain. Inevitably Cortes and Mendoza clashed. Cortes made a strategic
error in leaving Mexico for Spain, and he never returned. Mendoza had no
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other serious challengers to his authority, and it would be left to him to
order expeditions to “California” and the “Seven Cities of Gold.”
Mendoza was not about to send anyone hither and yon without
making careful plans. The tale of the Seven Cities of Gold would have to
be first verified before money would be spent on a possible wild goose
chase. He nominated two people to lead a small entrada northward to
confirm or deny the existence of golden cities. A priest, Fray Marcos de
Niza, agreed to go. The other person drafted for the trek was the slave
Estevanico, who appears not to have had much choice in the matter.
Along with Indian servants, in 1539 the party proceeded northward,
heading towards the pueblo cities of the upper Rio Grande. The priest was
not physically up to the rigors of the long trek, and Estevanico found Fray
Marcos lagging behind. They worked out an agreement whereby
Estevanico would send an Indian back with a cross made of sticks; a small
cross meant nothing of importance; a large one meant to come at once.
When an Indian returned with a large cross, Fray Marcos hurried as
best he could to the vicinity of a pueblo. There he learned to his dismay
that hostile Indians had killed Estevanico. Not daring to go any further,
the priest tried to make out the outlines of the distant pueblo. Believing
what he (and what the Spaniards back in Mexico) wanted to believe, he
thought he saw walls of gold on the pueblo buildings. And, returning to
Mexico City, he reported this to Viceroy Mendoza. The story created
great excitement, everyone wanting to go and share in the riches.
Cabeza de Vaca was not present to hear Fray Marcos’s report,
having returned to Spain, but had he heard it he would almost certainly
have dismissed it as nonsense. Not so Mendoza who proceeded to
organize not one but several expeditions to be conducted simultaneously.
Two sea voyages were made, utilizing the late Alvarado’s ships. In 1539
Francisco de Ulloa sailed up the Gulf of California and rounded the Baja
Peninsula, pronouncing the region a peninsula instead of an island.
Anyone wishing to explore the Pacific coast would therefore waste
considerable time and resources if they sailed up the gulf east of Baja.
More than sixty years later, this correct view was reversed, creating the
“island of California” myth that would persist well into the 18th century.
Another voyager, Hernando de Alarcon, sailed up the gulf and made it to
the mouth of the Colorado River, possibly as far as present-day Yuma,
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Arizona. Alarcon did not succeed in making a connection with the main
overland expedition led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.
With pageantry and glamour, 300 soldiers, a thousand Tlaxcalan
Indian auxiliaries, servants, and slaves, with horses, pack animals,
livestock, and armaments, set out in 1540 for the Seven Cities of Gold. By
July the Coronado expedition had reached Hawikuh, the Zuni pueblo
where Estevanico had met his end (the Zuni told Coronado through
interpreters that Estevanico had acted inappropriately toward their
women). When the Zuni refused to “acknowledge the Church as the ruler
and superior of the whole world, and the high priest called Pope, and in his
name the King and Queen,” the Spaniards attacked them and, with
superior arms, took over the pueblo. But the walls were made of adobe,
not gold.
Coronado nonetheless decided to continue the quest. He sent out
parties to explore the region. One came across the Grand Canyon, others
ranged through Arizona and New Mexico. The Spaniards found an Indian
slave they named “the Turk” who claimed he knew of a golden city and
how to get there, but what he really wanted was to get away from his
captors and back to his own people. The Turk led Coronado on a chase
clear up to Kansas and the Quivira Indians who most obviously did not
live in a golden city. Coronado continued searching until it was quite
obvious there would be no riches found. He ordered the Turk strangled for
his duplicity. On the way back, a horse accidentally kicked Coronado on
the head, and he never fully recovered from the injury.
On returning to New Spain, Coronado was put on trial for various
charges, including his Indian policies and why he continued searching for
Cibola after it was found to be a false story. He was eventually found
guilty of artocities against the Indians but continued to work for the
municipal government until his death in 1554. Others were not so lucky.
Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, a lieutenant on the expedition, made the
mistake of returning to Spain where he was charged with the
"mismanagement" of the expedition and did some prison time.
The Coronado expedition stands as a magnificent failure. It made
the Spanish government aware of the immensity of the land it claimed.
Sixty years later a colonizing effort would be made in New Mexico and,
while successful, it was a tenuous hold on a far-off and often hostile
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frontier. Although it was becoming obvious there was no easy Northwest
Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the Strait of Anian was a
fable, men would continue to search for these elusive goals. The belief in
a “River to the West” across North America lasted well into the 19th
century.
Two other expeditions are of note at this time. Mendoza sponsored
the voyage of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo who set sail on June 27, 1542, up
the west coast of Baja California north along the Pacific coast of the
continent. He made many stops along the way, naming capes and points
and other geographic features. He saw and named what is today called
San Diego Bay (almost all of his names were replaced by later explorers).
Cabrillo may have gone as far north as Cape Mendocino but missed
Monterey Bay and San Francisco Bay. On the voyage he was injured and
shortly afterward died of its complications. Spain did nothing with his
report and claims made by the expedition, and some sixty years passed
before another major coastal expedition was attempted.
Unconnected with any of the Mendoza expeditions was the
campaign led by Hernando de Soto, another private venture to conquer
Florida. De Soto set out in 1539 and literally trampled through the
southeastern part of North America from Florida to the Mississippi River,
meeting any Indian resistance with excessive violence. Of interest is the
fact that de Soto encountered empty villages that modern researchers
conclude were depopulated by European diseases that had spread in
advance of the invaders. De Soto himself became fatally ill. His men
weighted down his body and dumped it in the Mississippi River, fearing
(probably rightly) that angry Indians would desecrate a grave. The
expedition’s survivors made it to Mexico, the whole effort a costly failure.
The Spaniards learned harsh lessons from the efforts to penetrate
the North American continent. It seemed a barren region with hostile
Indians and no gold. Mythic geography still found no basis in reality,
though stories of the Northwest Passage, the River to the West, and other
tales still tantalized them. In the 19th century, Americans for a time would
look at the Great Salt Lake and search for a possible outlet to the Pacific
Ocean. After the Coronado failure Spain learned its lesson and found
more profit in consolidating what was already discovered or conquered,
and plenty remained to be done in this respect. The 1540s saw major
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mining discoveries in both Mexico and Peru; risky expeditions seemed of
secondary importance.
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FOR FURTHER READING
Bolton, Herbert E. Coronado, Knight of Pueblo and Plains (1949).
Crosby, Alfred. The Columbian Exchange (1972).
De Voto, Bernard. The Course of Empire (1952).
Hennessy, Alistair. The Frontier in Latin American History (1978).
Kelsey, Harry. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo (1986).
Lamb, Harold. New Found Land (1955).
Parr, Charles McK. Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator (1964).
Sobel, Dava. Longitude (1995).
Terrell, John U. Estevanico the Black (1968).
Wilson, Derek. The World Encompassed: Francis Drake and His Great
Voyage (1977).
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CHAPTER 5:
HISPANIC SOCIETY IN A NEW WORLD
How the Conquest was Possible
How could a few hundred men topple several million people
organized into warlike kingdoms? The question may seem perplexing, but
in hindsight the reasons seem clear enough. Spaniards had no elaborate
military training and, though usually called soldiers, were really just armed
men, their status defined by some civil position. They brought with them
technological and psychological advantages, however, that overpowered
the Aztec and Inca leaders. First and foremost was steel: not necessarily
the firearms of the 16th century, but steel swords, helmets, and plated
armor. Guns made a loud noise, and cannon could be destructive in a
siege. But in close combat Spanish weaponry outmatched the weapons of
the Indians who had no metal weapons. The Spaniards also had trained
mastiffs, war dogs, large and frightening beasts against which there was no
New World counterpart.
The Spaniards also had horses. This gave them speed and
mobility, and trained horses were as effective in their way as modern
mobile military vehicles. Horsemen with lances could split up large
Indian armies. On flat ground, fewer than 200 Spanish horsemen
reinforced by foot soldiers could be effective against any number of
Indians. Horses had been extinct in the Western Hemisphere for some
40,000 years or more; the Indians had never seen anything like them.
Although the Indian belief that man and horse were one beast is probably
exaggerated and at most was an initial impression, the Indians found it
very difficult to fight against mounted horsemen. Spanish horsemen were
as effective in their time as Cossacks, cavalry, and mounted police would
be in theirs.
Along with the technological advantages, Spaniards had a
psychological edge. Aggressive and individualistic, they believed in the
superiority of their culture and religion. Outraged by the evidence of
human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism, they drew immediate conclusions
about Aztec culture. Thus they saw nothing worthwhile about Aztec
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language, culture, or social customs, and they carried this contempt to
other Indian societies. On the other side, Moctezuma and the Aztecs
believed in their own myths and tried to equate them with the Spaniards.
By a most lucky coincidence for the Spaniards, they arrived during a
crucial year in the Aztec calendar, further confusing native thinking about
these strange aliens. The Incas suffered a different miscalculation:
Atahualpa underestimated the small number of foreign invaders and what
they were capable of doing.
In other areas of the New World, conquest proved far more
difficult. Toppling the Aztec and Inca empires was as much a political act
as it was a military one. Areas with less structured societies fought harder
and resisted better, as Spaniards learned from disastrous expeditions to the
southeastern part of North America, Central America, and interior areas of
South America. Not until the 19th century would European advances in
weapons technology, such as repeating rifles, provide them with the same
level of superiority that Spaniards had against the Aztecs and Incas in the
16th century.
Justifying the Conquest
From the very beginning the rulers of Spain were concerned over
just who were the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere, a concern
that grew as did the realization that Columbus had not reached Asia but
had stumbled across two previously unknown continents. Indians seemed
a race apart from the known European, African, and Asian peoples. Were
they rational beings or barbarians? Pagans, or possibly relapsed infidels?
Aristotle, dead in his grave for the past eighteen hundred years, still
influenced European thought. He had claimed that some peoples were
slaves by nature. Were these Indians slaves or free beings? What was the
responsibility of the Catholic Church to bring the True Faith to them?
These questions were important, for their answers would be used to
justify any policies the Spaniards formulated for the Indians. Spaniards
needed to know if Indians would pay them tribute. Would the Indians
keep their lands, or would Spain take them over? It was common at the
time to brand slaves. Could this be lawfully done? Meanwhile, the
Church had questions of its own. Should Indians be converted, baptised,
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instructed in Latin, and learn the European versions of writing and
mathematics (the Europeans showed almost no inclination to decipher
indigenous pictographic writing or comprehend Aztec, Mayan, or other
systems of mathematics)? New World astronomy was ignored in a time
when European monarchs had court astrologers, and the Church believed
the Earth was the center of the universe.
Well before Cortes invaded the Mexican mainland, Spanish leaders
were pondering these and other questions. On the island of Hispanola,
Father Antonio de Montesinos had no doubt as to the identity of the
Indians. They were rational beings, and to make war against them for no
purpose other than conquest was morally wrong. In 1511 he railed against
the Spaniards for what they had done to the native inhabitants on
Hispanola. Few colonizers agreed with him, though one, Bartolome de las
Casas, was so struck by Montesinos’s message that he abandoned the
material world, became a Dominican priest, and spent his life working for
the welfare of the Indians.
King Ferdinand heard the arguments, which the Dominicans
pointed out could be quite serious if Spain were committing offenses
against God. The king and his advisers worked out a solution, the Laws of
Burgos (1512-1513). This was tepid legislation that did little more than
try to justify what the Spaniards were doing. The Dominicans wanted
more, for they questioned whether Spain’s conquest of the Indies was even
legal. The advisers then came up with the Requerimiento. This document
gave the European version of the history of the world, claimed the
supremacy of Spain over the New World and the rights granted to Spain
by Pope Alexander VI, and warned that failure to acknowledge the rights
of Spain or to accept Christianity could result in a war of punishment or
enslavement against the Indians.
It didn’t seem like much of a legal justification, but the way the
conquistadors used it made it even less. Las Casas read the document and
couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Spanish captains on exploratory
expeditions would shout it in Spanish to uncomprehending, fleeing
Indians. Or, finding themselves in a deserted village, read it anyway. The
document ignored the fact that no Indian would be able to understand it
unless it was translated into his language. Its authors didn’t mention
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where or how an interpreter could be found who was proficient in Spanish
and one of the numerous languages spoken by peoples yet to be met.
Ideally, Spanish colonists might come to the Americas and coexist
with the Indians who would learn European farming skills and be
converted to Catholicism. Several experiments were actually conducted to
see if such coexistence was possible. Jeronymite friars made the effort on
Hispanola between 1516 and 1520; Cuba was the testing ground between
1525 and 1535. All such efforts failed. Bringing Indians together in close
quarters as villagers prompted almost all of them to succumb to European
diseases. Spanish colonists wanted to exploit Indian labor and wrangled
with the priests over who was to control them. Local officials invariably
sided with the colonists. After some thirty years of experimentation,
attempts to transform Indians into Castilian Christian farmers and laborers
were unsuccessful. In the meantime, events such as the conquest of the
Aztecs had opened up huge new worlds of Indians and riches. Social
experiments gave way for the time being to aggressive conquest.
Spoils for the Victor
Following the initial conquest of Indians on Hispanola, the Spanish
Crown adopted the encomienda system to reward the conquistadores. The
encomienda originated during the Middle Ages as a system of granting
control over the lands and people captured in the wars against the
Muslims. Adopting the practice to the New World, a conquistador who
was awarded an encomienda grant received a group of Indians who owed
him tribute and labor. The encomendero, as the receiver of the grant was
called, assumed the responsibility of protecting the Indians, helping defend
the colony against its enemies, and providing for the support of a parish
priest. The encomienda policy did not work well on Hispanola as the
native population declined precipitously by 1518, not from epidemic
diseases so much as from mistreatment and culture shock.
The encomienda worked more successfully on the mainland.
Cortes rewarded his followers by assigning encomienda grants to himself
and his comrades. Las Casas perusaded King Carlos that this was not a
good idea, given what had happened on Hispanola and the other Caribbean
islands. The king ordered Cortes not to establish the encomienda in New
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Spain. Since Cortes had already done so, he ignored the order and
succeeded in persuading the Crown that the system was needed to keep
order in the new conquest. The order was revoked, and Indians
contributed their tribute and labor to their conquerors.
The encomenderos thus became effective heads of society in the
central areas of Mexico and Peru, their families beginning a New World
aristocracy. Of course, most of them were not of noble birth. Their claim
to distinction came in surviving the wars of conquest, for which they
claimed their rewards. But they soon learned to act noble.
The tribute gathered for the encomenderos made them wealthy and
powerful, but it came at a great cost to the Indians. At first they kept their
language, clothing, and local organizations, but links to Spanish society
were soon established that made the central areas more Hispanic than
Indian. Encomenderos employed majordomos and estancieros (overseers
and foremen) who lived among the Indians to see to the collection of
tribute and labor, and brought with them systems of Spanish supervision
and organization. Since Spaniards preferred to live in towns, encomienda
Indians had to come to towns to perform periodic labor to fulfill their
obligation and to deliver their tribute. They quarried stone, transported
building materials, built houses and churches, and harvested crops. Their
encomenderos also hired out their labor to other Spaniards.
Tribute groups saw what the city looked like and experienced the
beginnings of major social changes. Some remained in the towns to work
as unskilled laborers. They lived on the edges of the towns in “temporary”
huts that for many became permanent residences. Any economic disasterdrought, famine, fear of disease-could bring large numbers of Indians to
town seeking work. Soon forests of huts surrounded Spanish towns. A
population of Indians that included tribute parties, individual migrants, and
permanent servants lived in the huts, these groups merging into a large
labor force. The movement continued for centuries. Modern cities in
Spanish-speaking America still have this same setup on their margins.
Historically, the movement to the cities became a principal mechanism for
acculturation and modernization.
Almost immediately encomienda Indians experienced a dilemma
not of their own making. Adjustment to their new Spanish rulers proved
costly. Epidemic diseases, overwork, and cultural shock resulted in a
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calamitous decline in population in the central areas. Mexico dropped
from a pre-conquest population of an estaimated 25 million in 1519 to just
over a million by 1600.
A similar decline occurred in Peru.
Encomenderos could not afford the expenses of their responsibilities with
the decline in tribute. Although encomienda practices would continue in a
few areas throughout the colonial period, in the central area it evolved into
the development of haciendas (estates) involved in agriculture and
ranching.
The Spanish Crown also played a part in curbing encomienda
grants. Encomenderos could be a rival political force to the audiencias
(colonial administrators) and viceroys sent to establish stable government
in the new colonies. To curb encomendero power, the Crown specified
that encomienda grants could be only for two lives-the lifespan of the
encomendero and one heir. Thereafter, the grant would revert to the
Crown. Although there were many exceptions to this policy, eventually
the number of encomiendas was reduced. In its place the Crown
developed a new labor system for central Mexico and the Andean
highlands, the repartimiento (basically, forced labor).
The repartimiento was the Crown’s answer to the demands of
Spaniards in the colonies that had not received encomienda grants, largely
because they had arrived after the conquest. It was also a way to deal with
the problem of the declining Indian population. Under the repartimiento
system, adult male Indians were to report periodically to work on public
works projects such as road construction, labor on ranches and farms, or
work in the mines. Both encomenderos and non-encomienda Spaniards
would get an allotment of Indian labor. The Indians received a small wage
for their work, but what it all amounted to was a version of slavery. Tribal
leaders who failed to fill village quotas were fined and imprisoned, and as
disease continued to decimate the Indian population, it became ever more
difficult to meet the quotas.
Probably the most disastrous form of labor obligation was the mita,
a version of the repartimiento that required Indians to work in the mines.
The most notorious example of this system began in Peru in the 1570s
under Viceroy Francisco de Toledo. The mita required Indians to work for
a six-month period, every seven years, at the San Luis Potosi mines. The
work obligation did not include the time spent in traveling to and from the
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mines that were in remote locations. Some 400 miles from the coast, and
at altitudes between 12,000-17,000 feet, the mines presented enormous
logistics problems in bringing labor and supplies to the mines and silver
down to the coast for shipment to Spain.
Little food could be grown in the mining area, so everything had to
be brought in, and “everything” was speculative: when ships would arrive,
what kind and how many particular products, and the instability of
commodity prices all affected mining operations. Supplies had to be
transported from the coast to the mines. Up to 1,000 Indians herded pack
trains of 2,000 llamas over narrow passes and rough roads. Mine
operators had to bring the labor in at spaced intervals, lest there be a glut
or dearth of workers. Indians were expected to bring their own supplies of
food, clothing, and bedding. The wages paid were so low an Indian went
into debt to fulfill the mita requirement. As time went on, and the
declining Indian population made it more difficult to meet the quotas, the
same Indians were called more often. As the situation became intolerable,
many Indians abandoned their homes and sought the stability of
employment on haciendas as peons. Hacienda owners welcomed this
labor and succeeded in keeping it exempt from mita service until 1732.
Besides the mines, Indians could be assigned to obrajes (factories)
where they turned out woolen and cotton cloth, sandals, hats, gunpowder,
leather goods, and other consumer items. All this was done at low wages
and long hours, with many abuses.
Eventually the Crown recognized the unworkability of the
repartimiento and abolished the agricultural part of it in central Mexico in
1630, though mining with repartimiento labor continued into the 18th
century. As the practicality of the repartimiento system declined, it was
replaced by so-called “free” labor-the contracting of Indians for
employment rather than requiring quotas for forced labor. In practice free
labor became pretty much like debt servitude and served as a way of
providing a stable labor force on haciendas. Since wages could not pay for
all an Indian’s debts, he had to remain on the hacienda until the debt was
paid to the hacendado (owner). At death the debt was passed to the next
generation. Indians found some advantages to this system: exemption
from tribute and repartimiento service, and some land the Indian’s family
could cultivate.
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Over time, however, haciendas encroached on the ancestral lands
of the native peoples. Indian pueblos lost their lands by legal or illegal
methods. When the population decline ended in the early 17th century,
and the number of Indians began to increase, native peoples found
themselves on less land than before the conquest. In such areas as
northern Mexico the loss of land reached a crisis point by the late 19th
century when less than one percent of the people owned 99% of the land.
“Land and liberty” became a battle cry of the Mexican Revolution of 1910,
and land reform has remained an issue among the nations of Latin
America to the present day.
The injustices done to the Indians did not go unchallenged. Carlos
I and V, ruler of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor respectively, became
deeply concerned over the issue of how Christians should conduct
themselves towards human beings who were different in their race,
religion, and culture. After almost a half century of Spanish conquest and
exploitation in the New World, Carlos called a conference to determine
whether the conquests were just or not, and for all new expeditions to
cease until a decision was reached. No emperor or ruler before or since
has made such a decision; surely his conscience was troubled by reports of
Indian mortality and conquistador avoidance of royal edicts.
The conference began in mid-August 1550 in the city of Valladolid
in Spain and lasted about a month.
Fourteen judges presided.
Representing the view that the Indians had received unjust treatment was
Bartolome de las Casas. Juan Gines de Sepulveda took the opposite view,
based on Aristotelian philosophy, that some people were meant by nature
to be slaves of others. Both men were widely respected and renowned as
scholars. Sepulveda held that the king of Spain had the right to wage war
on Indians prior to preaching Christianity to them, and that religion
followed conquest. Las Casas argued that this was unjust.
The outcome of the debate, which became quite complicated and
involved, was inconclusive. The judges were stalemated and reluctant to
render opinions individually. Since they left town immedately after the
conference, obtaining a consensus opinion from them proved impossible.
In the years that followed, both sides claimed victory. “Though the
application of Aristotelian ideas to the Indians seems a fairly clear-cut
issue, the questions discussed [at Valladolid] remain complicated,”
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observes historian Lewis Hanke. “Not only have different conclusions
been reached by men through the centuries, but individuals change their
minds on the subject.”
One unfortunate aspect of las Casas’s career was that his writings
were translated into several languages, including English, and were widely
circulated. Since his writing was highly polemical, people in other
countries took a negative view of Spanish settlement in the New World,
though the record for England and Portugal was hardly better in treatment
of native peoples. The Spanish Crown did find much of las Casas’s
argument persuasive and urged colonizers to use friendly persuasion rather
than warfare to bring Indians to the Catholic faith. The earlier Laws of
Burgos were modified by the New Laws of 1542, an unsuccessful attempt
to abolish the encomienda system. Carlos’s son, Philip II, issued an edict
in 1573 requiring Spaniards to explain the obligations of the Spanish
Crown so that Indians might understand the benefits of accepting Spanish
sovereignty.
In the end, the troubled conscience of Carlos I and the decades of
effort by Bartolome de las Casas had little effect on the sufferings of
conquered Indians or the outlook of conquering Spaniards. Spain saw two
societies in the Americas existing side by side: republica de indios and
republica de espanoles. The two were linked in many negative ways, from
the dominance of Spaniards over Indians culturally, economically, and
politically to the powerlessness of the Indians to protest against the
imbalance. Many textbooks on the history of Latin America deal with
only a small part of the populations of the Latin American nations; the
history of the largely Indian poor masses remains neglected or untold.
Creation of a Spanish Society
Even as Spanish conquistadors such as the Pizarro brothers and the
Almagrists were busy killing each other off in rival gang wars, a complete
and intact Spanish society was migrating to the Indies. All levels of
society sent people. In Spain (as elsewhere in Europe), the practice of
primogeniture left the family inheritance to the oldest son. Younger sons
had the choices of the priesthood, a military career, or the challenge and
opportunity of the colonies. Men whose education varied from doctorates
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of law to total illiteracy, and everyone in between, came to the Indies. For
decades the migration was overbalanced with an excess of young single
men, but many of those went off on entradas to unknown frontiers and
were never heard from again.
Fewer Spanish women came to the Indies than did English women
to the English colonies, but enough came to preserve important cultural
elements. Like their male counterparts, they came from all over Spain and
had all types of backgrounds. Leading Spanish colonists--encomenderos,
artisans, professionals-sought Spanish women for marriage, less for
romance than to observe the laws of succession. There seemed little point
in acquiring wealth and power if there was no direct heir to carry on the
family name. Women who could pass for well-born ladies could
sometimes be imported to the colonies almost as a business venture, but
their presence was necessary if Spanish traditions and culture were to be
transplanted to the New World. In the absence of their husbands, women
became effective heads of households, teaching the Spanish language to
Indian and African servants, managing business affairs, and acquiring
property in their own right in several successive marriages. The “rich
widow” almost became a stereotype of the eligible Spanish woman in the
Indies. Spanish women held a much higher status than did their English
counterparts; they retained important rights upon marriage and could own
property and businesses themselves, something unheard of in England and
the United States until well into the 19th century.
Africans were with Spaniards in America almost from the first
contact. Although many were slaves, others had free status and were
acculturated to Spanish culture, speaking the language and performing a
wide range of activities necessary to Spanish society. They were servants,
artisans, soldiers, and estancieros. Plantation slavery did not exist in
Spanish America until well into the colonial period. African slaves had
certain rights that they took care to preserve.
From the viewpoint of the Indians, Africans were just so many
more Spaniards, only of another color. The Africans saw the Indians in
much the same way as Spaniards did-an inferior people to be exploited.
Some African slaves even had Indians working for them. Whether slaves
or freedmen, Africans remained subordinated within the Spanish
community. Few found it possible to continue African traditions.
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Spaniards shifted them around and mingled them with other Africans who
spoke a different language. Such fragmentation served two purposes: it
discouraged rebellion and hastened acculturation into Spanish society.
Most Africans had to speak Spanish to each other. Many Africans didn’t
come from Africa anyway; they came to the New World by way of Spain
or Portugal, where they or their parents had learned occupational skills and
European ways.
Spaniards classified Africans in several ways. They at first used
the term criollo to mean any person of African descent born outside
Africa, including blacks from Spain. The term soon applied to white
persons born in the Americas, though the French in Louisiana used the
term to describe blacks born there. Inevitably there was a mingling of
races, usually involving a Spanish father and Indian or African mother.
The offspring of white and black, the mulatto, held a higher status than the
African. They were emancipated from slavery more often and became a
dynamic group in Hispanic society. To the Spaniards, mulattoes were in a
category apart from blacks, a distinction not made in the English colonies
and, subsequently, the United States, where the “drop of blood” rule
determined one’s race. In the United States, having a black grandparent on
the family tree would mean a person was a quadroon; having a black greatgrandparent made a person an octoroon (one-eighth black), though the
proportion of white blood at that point made African features all but
invisible.
The mixing of Spanish and Indian resulted in offspring called
mestizo. With the passage of several generations, race mixture became
extremely difficult to classify. The Spanish government at one point came
up with sixteen categories for racial identification, applying names for the
children of Spaniard and mestizo (castizo), Spaniard and mulatto
(morisco), Spaniard and morisco (chino or albino), Indian and Chino (sale
atras), and other permutations. Ultimately the categorization broke down
as unrealistic, and as race became less important in Hispanic society to all
except the elite who attempted to preserve their "purity of blood.” To the
materially successful mestizo or mulatto, higher status was for sale as the
Crown would sell a document attesting to the whiteness of the purchaser.
“Wealth, not gentle birth or racial purity, was the distinguishing
characteristic of the colonial aristocracy,” notes historian Benjamin Keen.
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Africans were thus of major importance during and after the
conquest period. They never posed a threat to Spanish cultural dominance
but instead adapted to it. The net effect was to increase the number of
Spaniards as agents and auxiliaries, helping to put the Hispanic imprint on
the Americas. Colonial society became a caste society of white, mestizo,
mulatto, black, and Indian; but over time the terms mestizo and Indian
became less physical descriptions than social concepts applying to a
person’s status and occupation.
Status and Occupation in Hispanic Society
Although encomenderos occupied the top rung of the economic
and social ladder of Hispanic society, there were many steps beneath them.
Among the general class of professional people were the secular and
regular clergy, lawyers, physicians, and notaries. Spaniards respected the
written word and legal formulas to an unusual degree. They included
notaries on all expeditions, and notaries could be found in the smallest
towns and mining camps. Spanish expedition leaders wanted notaries to
verify in writing decisions taken that later might be questioned. This need
to get things in writing made notaries a ubiquitous group, more numerous
than lawyers. They worked as clerks, constables, and accountants.
Merchants came in two classifications. The term “merchant”
applied to high-status men who imported and sold general European
merchandise and sent silver and gold back to Spain. Merchants in the
colonies represented big companies headquartered in Seville, and these
colonial junior partners had the goal of making enough money to return to
Spain and found their own companies. The second group, much lower in
status, included local dealers who bought and sold locally and stayed in
one town.
The term “artisans” applied to anyone involved in making the
items settlers needed. They purchased cloth and iron imported by the
merchants and made them into the clothing and tools that Spain could not
send to the colonies. Successful artisans bought African slaves and trained
them in the work to be done; they also hired Indian apprentices. Although
their social status was not high, artisans could make a good living and be
77
respected for the work they did, and they became permanent members of
the communities they served.
Some Spanish peasants came to the Indies and became agricultural
supervisors, overseeing the labor of Indians and Africans. Their status was
low, but they played an important role in introducing European crops and
farming methods. Even lower than Spanish gardeners and farmers were
sailors and foreigners. At a point in time when the king of Spain was also
the Holy Roman Emperor, and Habsburg territory included non-Spanish
lands, it was unavoidable that foreigners owing allegiance to the Habsburg
dynasty might find their way to the Indies despite Spanish restrictions on
foreign immigrants. Many foreigners (and Iberian neighbors such as
Basques and Portuguese) served as sailors on Spanish ships. Unlike the
sea-faring Portuguese, Spaniards held sailors in low status, a despised but
necessary group that brought settlers, merchandise, and supplies to the
New World. But Spain bred a land-oriented people, so no respect and few
rewards went to the sailors who made travel possible.
At rock bottom on the Spanish social ladder, though above Indians
and slaves, were transients. These were men who had no particular
function in life, and as vagrants wandered around looking for
opportunities. Arriving after the conquest and without any connections,
they presented an idle and potentially troublesome element in Spanish
society. Encomenderos, enjoying a virtually baronial status, took in
transients as guests, especially when the visitor came from the same region
in Spain. As guests the transients formed a semi-dependent relationship to
the master of the house, enjoying the custom of the host deriving prestige
from the number of people he fed at his table. This absorption of
transients as house guests helped defuse the polarization of wealthy
encomenderos and other elites from poor and jealous transients.
Taking in some transients as house guests hardly accounted for the
much larger number who did not enjoy such favor. But these men had
come for the purpose of getting rich, and there were just enough examples
of success to lure them on entradas-any expedition of discovery, conquest,
or settlement would do. With the central areas under control, viceroys and
governors found it expedient to announce expeditions to unknown lands,
more to disperse the excess transients than to conquer new territory. Many
transients died on these expeditions, thus ridding the central areas of a
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troublesome element. And if an area was discovered that actually yielded
gold and other riches, so much the better.
Society in a Fringe Area
With incredible good fortune Spaniards had struck it rich in
conquering areas with dense native populations, a high level of
civilization, and tangible assets. Spanish explorers who went to other
areas found treasure much more elusive. Such was the case with explorers
who headed up the Rio de la Plata south of Brazil in 1535. They founded
Santa Maria de Buenos Aires (the future capital of Argentina) but
encountered nomadic Indians who were excellent and mobile warriors.
Pinned down inside their little fort, the Spaniards suffered from starvation
and disease. They finally abandoned Buenos Aires as hopeless and went
up the river about a thousand miles until they found sedentary Indians who
grew crops and lived in villages. There they founded Asuncion (the future
capital of Paraguay) and began a long coexistence with the Guarani
people. Attempts to establish the encomienda system, however, met with
failure. Unlike the structured society of the Aztecs where the Spaniards
could simply replace the top level, the Guarani had no tribute system, no
large cities, and little hierarchical authority. Clearly, the Spaniards would
have to adapt to this new situation.
The fact that some 350 Spaniards were surrounded by upwards of
200,000 Indians seems not to have bothered the Spaniards in Paraguay.
They helped the Guarani fight off nomadic Indian enemies, and the
Guarani came to look at the Spaniards as chiefs or headmen, but in Indian
rather than Hispanic terms. Hospitable to an extreme, they freely gave
their women to the Spaniards as wives and concubines. Every Spaniard
had access to between fifteen and a hundred women, but this sexual
paradise came at a price. Having given their women, the Guarani now
considered the Spaniards as relatives! The encomienda idea became
personal service. Before long the “Spaniards” in Paraguay were really
mestizos, and Paraguay long existed as a backwater Spanish colony
attracting few settlers, a place where government officials reluctantly
accepted assignment.
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European Diseases in the Americas
The one-sidedness of disease striking the native peoples of the
Western Hemisphere while leaving Europeans relatively untouched must
have profoundly affected the Indians. Spanish microbes may have killed
up to 90% of the pre-Columbian New World population in some areas
(and, later, England and French and Portuguese and Dutch would make
their contributions to Indian mortality as well). No one in the 16th century
understood how diseases spread. Fresh still in the memory of Europeans
was the bubonic plague that had killed up to half the people in Europe in
the 14th century, with recurring epidemics for the next 300 years. People
of that time accepted such catastrophes as the will of God and looked for
scapegoats on whom or what the blame could be placed: Jews, heretics,
witches, lightning, or Christians who had lapsed into sinful ways.
Europeans certainly did not know the various ways that diseases
could be spread. Mosquitoes, fleas, lice, and tsetse flies carrying disease
would infect by biting. So we have malaria, plague, typhus, yellow fever,
and encephalytis.
Airborne diseases spread influenza, diphtheria,
pneumonic plague, and other diseases. Smallpox spread through the air
and through indirect contact, such as use of infected blankets. Europeans
didn’t know the difference between bacterial and viral diseases, not that it
mattered, for tuberculosis and cholera (bacterial) could kill just as easily as
measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox, and pertussis.
By contrast, with only one possible exception (syphilis), New
World inhabitants sent no diseases in the opposite direction. They died in
the thousands from these European-sent epidemics. When Hernando de
Soto went on his rampage in southeastern North America, seeking gold
and killing anyone who couldn’t provide it, his expedition ran across
deserted villages where people had only recently died of smallpox. Pizarro
had the same experience; Huayna-Capac, the father of Atahualpa, may
have died of the disease well before Pizarro arrived in Peru. Microbes
traveled far faster than the speediest Spanish horseman.
The question of why the spread of disease was so one-sided is easy
enough to explain. For thousands of years Old World peoples lived
among livestock-cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, horses. They shared the same
ground and were exposed to animal feces, urine, breath, blood, and sores.
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The relationship had been going on for some 8,000 years. Animal diseases
such as rinderpest in cattle mutated into measles; cowpox into smallpox;
and other similar transferences. Thousands if not millions of Europeans
might die of disease, but many were resistant, some with natural
immunities, and that resistance would be passed on to their children. In a
Europe notorious for its filthy cities and lack of hygiene, only the hardiest
survived, and they brought that hardiness-and disease-to the New World.
With no history of livestock other than the llamas of the Andes
region, New World peoples had no immunities against these contagious
and infectious diseases. Apart from the dense populations of central
Mexico and the Andean highlands, most native peoples lived in relatively
small settlements that could easily be decimated by smallpox or measles.
Little wonder that diseases that didn’t seem to kill Spaniards but
devastated Indians could be counted, along with cannon, steel, horses, and
war dogs-and the Christian God-as overwhelming forces which the Indians
could not successfully resist.
One final note: Europeans engaging in the slave trade along the
west African coast met a similar fate as heat and humidity bred the
mosquitoes that infected them with malaria and other tropical diseases. In
our own time, we may sometimes forget that “modern” medical
knowledge dates only to the 1880s and the great breakthroughs of Koch,
Pasteur, and other dedicated researchers who established the germ theory
of disease.
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For Further Reading
Davies, K.A. Landowners in Colonial Peru (1984).
Gibson, Charles. Spain in America (1966).
Hanke, Lewis. Aristotle and the American Indian: A Story in Race
Prejudice in the Modern World (1959).
Lockhard, James. Spanish Peru, 1532-1560 (1968).
Morner, Magnus. Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (1967).
Simpson, Lesley B. The Encomienda in New Spain (1950).
Wagner, Henry R. The Life and Writings of Bartolome de las Casas
(1967).
Weber, David J. The Spanish Frontier in North America (1992).
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CHAPTER 6:
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE
Many students taking a U.S. History course-and many people who
are not-make two false assumptions about slavery and the slave trade. The
first of these is that slavery existed only in the United States, not thinking
through to the fact that slavery became an integral part of the Western
Hemisphere’s economy during the colonial period and for most of the 19th
century. The second assumption is that slaves were kidnapped from
Africa; in actuality only a small percentage of slaves from Africa were
taken forcibly. In recent years some African American leaders and a few
white politicians, who evidently have not studied history, have called for
reparations-payments to blacks in the United States today to redress the
wrong done to slave ancestors.
To be consistent in the issue of reparations, the United States
should not stand alone in such judgment. Portugal, England, Holland, and
France all participated in the slave trade, decades and even centuries
before the establishment of the United States. Spain, following the 1494
Treaty of Tordesillas that kept it on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean,
did not send slave ships to Africa, but its colonies became major
purchasers of slaves from the slave traders who did go there. In modern
times, most of the nation members of the Organization of American States
utilized slavery as a foundation of their economic activity during the
colonial period and well into the 19th century, among them Brazil,
Mexico, Cuba, Jamaica, Venezuela, Peru, Belize, Trinidad-Tobago, Haiti,
and others. The Virgin Islands (bought by the U.S. from Denmark in
1917) and Puerto Rico (acquired by the U.S. from Spain after the SpanishAmerican War) had slaves working on plantations there long before they
became U.S. possessions.
Since slavery was based on the slave trade, African nations must
share in the guilt, since the slave trade existed well before imperialist
nations took control of most of Africa in the late 19th century. Ghana,
Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Togo, Benin, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon,
Congo, and Angola are present-day nations that from the 16th to the 19th
centuries provided the vast majority of the estimated 11 million slaves
transported to the Americas. When Europeans made contact with this
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region it was generally divided as the Ivory Coast, Gold Coast, and Slave
Coast, taking in the Bight of Benin and Bight of Biafra-the African
coastline running due east just north of the Equator to about fifteen
degrees south latitude. Add to this Mozambique on the east coast of
Africa and the island of Madagascar for supplying slaves, plus the islands
of Sao Tome and Principe in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of
Africa as major areas where the selling and buying of slaves took place.
The United States stands far from alone in sharing the guilt of slave
ownership and the slave trade.
Slavery itself is as old as recorded history, and even older.
Archaeological research shows some evidence of slavery in lower Egypt
some 10,000 years ago. Greece, the so-called birthplace of democracy,
had a large slave population, as did Rome, as well as most societies in
ancient, medieval, and even modern times. Read the history of any area of
the world, and slaves do the work of their masters in Africa, Asia, Europe,
and both North and South America. The Bible, both Old and New
Testaments, mentions slavery. Joseph, the most famous slave in the Old
Testament, was sold into captivity by his jealous brothers. Moses freed
the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt.
For all but the last 500 years of recorded history, becoming a slave
was not a matter of race. It was the outcome of winners over losers,
conquerors and defeated, and not always from the fortunes of war. For
example, the Mexica of the Valley of Mexico, known mainly today as the
Aztecs, loved to gamble and would bet entire fortunes in their gaming.
With all else lost, an Aztec might bet his personal liberty or the freedom of
a son, the period of servitude negotiable with the size of the bet. Servitude
appeared in many guises, including indentured servants, peons, and serfs.
Some people have had to choose between security and slavery or
uncertainty and liberty, a hard decision for anyone to have to make.
The word slave itself calls for definition. It derives from slav, the
Slavic people conquered by other nations, and became the generic term for
anyone living in servitude. Words such as bondage suggest a legal basis
(e.g., bail bonds). Debt peonage is a form of hereditary servitude where
debts are passed to the next generation and beyond. Until the debt is paid,
the debtor owes service to the creditor. Serfs were bound to the land
owned by a noble landowner, an example of the strong maintaining control
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over the weak and the stability (and ultimate stagnation) of the society that
kept serfs, whether in the Middle Ages or in Tsarist Russia until 1862.
The obligations of slaves varied from one society to another.
Clearly the duties of a household servant, artisan, farm worker, fisherman,
or some other work requiring a degree of skill suggest a fairly close
relationship between master and slave. Free people became slaves when
their side lost a war; judges sentenced criminals to a term or a life of
slavery. In the Duala section of Cameroon in the colonial period,
European slave traders found the term “slave” applied to someone who
was a captive, a stranger, a fisherman, or someone from the African
interior bought by the Duala.
Democracy, civil rights, government by the people, democratic
republic, civil liberties-all are modern concepts. Most people in almost all
societies did not enjoy liberty or the rights of citizenship the way these
terms are endorsed today. Organizations such as Amnesty International,
monitoring human rights abuses, are modern creations. Slavery in most
societies (not all) today is a crime for which the slaveowners may be
imprisoned-ironically, sentenced to a term of involuntary servitude.
Occasionally there are stories in the news of undocumented immigrants
being pressed into slave-like conditions to produce some product such as
clothing. Alone in an alien land, unable to speak the language, not free to
leave, working for pennies a day, such people are, in effect, slaves. The
term is also applied to workers-often children-working for a few cents a
day in Third World countries, making a product often sold for a high price,
such as designer clothing or tennis shoes. Public outrage erupts at such
injustices, then subsides as people in the United States leave it to their
government to make the appropriate protest.
Regardless of the definitions of slavery, its obligations, and where
it was practiced, slavery was basically a color-blind activity until the 15th
century. During the Crusades victorious Christians made slaves of
Muslim prisoners; the Muslims did the same to the Christians when they
won the battle. But slavery took on an entirely new meaning when
Portuguese seafarers, heading down the west coast of Africa, turned
eastward along the coastline and encountered the kingdoms along the
Bight of Benin and Bight of Biafra.
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Portugal’s (and Europe’s) need for slave labor began modestly
enough. African kings and their societies were already involved in a slave
trade with interior Africa that, like the slave trade in Europe, was based
largely on success in war. Prisoners were a commodity that could be
traded for products their captors wanted, needed, or could not make for
themselves. The kingdoms along the coastline could also offer gold, palm
oil (used in soap and lubricants), and a variety of tropical products. In
turn, the Europeans, starting with the Portuguese, could offer such trade
goods as liquor, brass and copper utensils, linen and cotton cloth, various
tools, beads, and other manufactured items. Portugal’s interest in slaves
stemmed from the beginnings of plantation agriculture in the Azores,
Madeiras, and Cape Verde Islands. These fertile but uninhabited islands
seemed ideal for the production of surgar cane, a commodity that in the
15th century was produced for Europe in limited quantities mainly in the
Mediterranean region.
Plantation slavery began because the European settlers in the
Western Hemisphere soon found that certain profitable economic
endeavors required large numbers of workers. Indigenous peoples quickly
proved themselves unable to meet the requirement. Epidemic diseases and
overwork depopulated the Caribbean islands, and Portuguese settlers in
Brazil had to look deeper into the interior to purchase or kidnap Indians.
The initial conquest of Aztecs and Incas skimmed off the easiest riches of
gold and silver. Then came the harder work of gold and silver mining.
The encomienda and repartimiento systems continued to compel Indian
labor, despite the decline in population. Beyond New Spain and Peru,
however, other economic possibilities were demanding labor.
First and foremost was sugar, a most remarkable product that
consumers found almost addictive. Sugar transformed the diet of
Europeans. It changed the foods they ate, bringing new flavor and
palatability. It enhanced their beverages and increased the consumption of
Far East tea and New World cacao, from which came chocolate. It could
be processed into molasses, and molasses made into rum, each step
increasing the value of the product. Misleadingly, it seemed to provide
renewed energy; slaves were encouraged to drink the juice of the sugar
cane as they worked.
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Other products demanding extensive labor were rice, coffee,
indigo, and tobacco. Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793
reinvigorated slavery in the United States in the 19th century. Demand for
slave labor did not come from all colonizing regions at the same time.
Some general chronological outlines may be given. Portugal effectively
began the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and from the mid-15th century to
1800 some 40% of all slaves went to Brazil. Great Britain became
actively involved in the slave trade from 1698 until the nation outlawed it
in 1807. During the 117 years of the trade, the British brought more than
2.5 million slaves to the Western Hemisphere. France accounted for more
than 1.1 million in the period 1701-1800.
What did slaves cost? To buy 180 slaves on the Gambia coast in
1740, European traders offered 1,179 silver coins, 430 iron bars, 92 cutlass
swords, 430 gun flints, 1,162 kilograms of salt, 300 kilograms linen cloth,
130 kilograms Manchester textiles, 108 kilograms India textiles, 219
kilograms woolen cloth, 47 reams of paper, 164 guns, 71 pairs of pistols (a
“brace” of two pistols was one pair) 301 kilograms pewter ware, 16
kilograms lead balls, 102 brass pans, 518 kilograms gunpowder, 2 rods of
copper, and 119 gallons of rum. To this should be added 17 kilograms
cowrie shells, 60,00 crystal stones, and 15,195 beads. The African
monarchs also expected presents: more firearms, wine, brandy, fine
clothing, a clock, perhaps a lamp. It should be noted that this list and its
value did not represent the peak of slave prices. (source: Blackburn,
Making of New World Slavery, p. 386.)
From its beginnings the slave trade sent a minimum of 10,000
slaves a year by 1650, a figure that by 1713 was up to 40,000 annually. As
colonial plantations grew, so did the demand for labor. Between 1741 and
1810, the annual average was 60,000 a year. When Great Britain
abolished the slave trade in 1807, with the United States following suit a
year later, other nations took up the slack with increasing numbers into the
1840s.
Since Spain as a nation did not take part in the buying of slaves in
Africa, the Council of the Indies had to do something for the labor
demands of Spanish planters. The answer was the asiento, a contractual
agreement between Spain and another nation annually to supply a certain
number of slaves to Spanish colonists. Naturally, the contract was let to
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the highest bidder, with annual fees to be paid as well. The actual profit
gleaned from the asiento after fees and bribes were paid was not great; the
money lay in the opporunity offered by the contract to smuggle in
additional slaves and contraband goods. At one time or another England,
France, the Netherlands, and Portugal held asiento contracts.
In addition to winning an asiento, European nations chartered
companies with monopoly rights to buy African slaves. Probably the most
famous of these was England’s Royal African Company. Companies
established factories (trading posts), usually on islands off the African
coast. They would stockpile trade goods, negotiate with African monarchs
and merchants, and keep their purchases in barracoons, essentially prisons
where the slaves would be warehoused until they were loaded on an
outbound ship. Negotiations could take weeks or even months to
complete. Any number of factors could complicate the dealing: a lack of
slaves at the source of supply, or an excess number; displeasure with the
gifts or trade goods; the time of year, the weather, or disease. Europeans
seldom bothered to find out how the kingdoms acquired the slaves.
Enterprising merchants who had not received a charter or asiento
contract resented their exclusion. They operated as independent traders,
much to the protest of the chartered companies. However, the chartered
companies were failing to meet the demands of the users of slave labor.
Plantation owners complained of an undersupply of slaves, high prices,
and slaves of poor quality (too young, too old, or in poor health). In 1698
Parliament ended the Royal African Company’s monopoly and opened the
trade to all English subjects. Free traders had to pay a duty to the company
for maintenance of the trading posts and forts; but the traders also built
their own factories. The end of the monopoly caused aggressive
competition for slaves on the African coast, with the private traders far
exceeding the Royal African Company in shipping slaves. Independent
traders from other nations besides England also got into the act. It is one
of history’s ironies that slavery was the cause of the victory of “free trade”
over monopoly.
Until well into the 18th century the British Navy believed that the
slave trade provided a “cradle for seamen.” That is, young men, or even
boys, allegedly gained valuable seamanship experience by serving on slave
ships, and this experience created opportunities for careers in the British
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Navy. The belief was shown to be a myth when advocates calling for the
abolition of the slave trade presented statistics demonstrating that the trade
was actually the graveyard of sailors, not its cradle. In counterpoint to the
European diseases that decimated Indian populations, African diseases
shortened the lives of large numbers of European sailors, officers, and
merchants. Malaria, encephalitis, yaws, and any kind of tropical fever
made the slave trade a risky enterprise for Europeans. A poet with a
morbid sense of humor composed these lines:
Beware and take care
Of the Bight of Benin;
For one that comes out,
There are forty go in.
After a cargo of slaves was purchased, traders loaded them into the
hold of the ship. Much has been made of the intolerable shipboard
conditions-the lack of individual space, fresh air, and proper hygiene, and
the high mortality rates. Traders debated the merits of “tight packing” and
“loose packing” in the ships. Depending on one’s viewpoint, tight packing
resulted in a higher death rate, whereas loose packing had a lower death
rate but with fewer slaves shipped, profit was lower. The debate, often
cited by historians, did not include the probability of illness and disease
spread by slaves in the barracoons during the time traders and African
rulers dickered over the prices, or the waiting until the weather was right
to set sail. Obviously, it was to the traders’ financial interests to keep their
cargo alive during the voyage.
Possibly the most famous illustration of a slave ship is the crosssection of the Brookes, a British slave ship that operated in 1783 and 1784.
Weighing 320 tons, the Brookes could and did pack more than 600 slaves
into its hold. Pictures of the cross-section, showing slaves packed together
like sardines, have appeared in numerous U.S. history textbooks and
studies of slavery and the slave trade. Yet it was an atypical ship, for
almost all the slave ships carried far fewer slaves, perhaps on average
between 100 and 150. The Brookes gained notoriety because Thomas
Clarkson, a British abolitionist, published the diagram, and thousands of
copies were printed. Then as now, the magnitude of the horror of the
cross-section shocked people and strengthened the argument against the
slave trade. But it was an extreme example, and as such was far more
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sensational than the mundane reality of hundreds of ships ferrying their
cargoes of slaves across the Atlantic, tens of thousands of slaves each year,
every year, until the 1870s.
Slave Revolts
Of the thousands of voyages made by slave ships between the 17th
and 19th centuries, one stands out in popular awareness: the revolt of the
slaves on the Amistad. Several books, a major motion picture, and web
sites have made this incident famous; but it was hardly the only such
revolt. At least 392 cases of shipboard revolt by slaves between 1698 and
1807 are on record, with another 93 incidents of non-slave Africans
against ships and longboats (shore-based attacks) as well. Put another
way, up to 10% of the slave ships experienced revolts.
Ship commanders were well aware of the possibility of rebellion
and took precautions against it. They equipped their ships with firearms,
cannon, and swivel guns. Extra crewmen might be hired. To stop slaves
from committing suicide by jumping overboard, they hung nets along the
side. Few slave revolts succeeded. Slaves and crew might suffer injuries
or death, but throughout the period the death toll amounted to around 1%,
or 100,000 of the 11 million. Slaveowners did not make any money from
a slave who died. However, another way of looking at the statistics shows
that resistance, whether successful or unsuccessful, may have kept a
million Africans from being sold into slavery, since higher costs for
resistance prevention meant less money for slave purchases.
Research has shown little pattern to slave revolts, other than most
occurred onboard, at night, or in daytime. Half of the known revolts
occurred before the ships set sail, a third on the Middle Passage, and about
10% before the voyage began. Slaves may have rebelled more while still
in sight of Africa. Larger ships took more time to load, and were thus
exposed to revolt. A ship’s crew suffering from disease could be
vulnerable. Slave women, often as not sexually abused by crewmen,
might gain access to keys, weapons, or vital information.
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Rationalizing the Trade
The Middle Passage has been recognized as the most difficult of
the trans-Atlantic slave routes. Sailing ships were vulnerable to the
vagaries of wind currents and weather conditions; a voyage from Africa to
the Caribbean or Atlantic coast of North America might take from two to
four months. The longer a voyage, the higher the mortality rate-for crew
as well as slaves. In cramped conditions, chained together, given little
chance to exercise or have proper sanitation, some slaves succumbed to
disease. When the demand for slave labor ran high, traders took slaves
who were too young, too old, or in poor health. These people were called
“refuse” slaves, so much marketable trash, and were more likely to die on
the voyage.
Until the late 18th century few Europeans troubled themselves over
the morality of the African slave trade. They thought of it in economic
terms, and where slavery might be lamented by its practitioners for its
inhumanity to man, they argued its necessity in a number of ways.
Economic realities provided an important justification.
Plantation
agriculture called for large numbers of laborers that Indians could not or
would not provide. What about “free” labor, that is, a person working for
wages? Few European workers were willing to remain in this status for
long, since the New World offered opportunities to the ambitious.
Indentured servitude was another alternative. Tens of thousands of
Europeans sold themselves into indentured servitude for the price of a
ship’s ticket to the Americas, especially to the English colonies. This
method attracted mainly young men who traded their liberty for a contract
of two, four, seven (the most common) or up to fourteen years of working
for someone else. Many indentured servants ran away, to be lost in the
crowd of a town or to another colony, particularly in British North
America. But there were never enough white Europeans as free laborers
or indentured servants anyway, especially in the tropical regions. Whites
died in the tropical areas of disease just as they did in Africa. The
survivors who ran the plantations preferred Africans who at least had some
immunity to tropical diseases, a culture that accepted slavery as a
condition of existence, and who could be brought and trained to do the
work that made the owner a lot of money.
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Other rationales may seem hypocritical today, but many people
nonetheless believed them. One was the matter of Noah’s curse. In
Genesis 9: 21-27, after the Flood had subsided, Norah went to work as a
farmer, and he planted a vineyard. He made wine from the grapes, got
drunk, and went into his tent where, stark naked, he fell asleep. His son
Ham entered Noah’s tent without knocking, saw his naked father, and
went and told his brothers about it. Shem and Japeth entered the tent
backward so as not to see their father’s nakedness, and covered him with a
garment. When Noah learned what had happened, he cursed Ham and
declared that Ham’s son Canaan would be “a servant of servants” to his
brethren. In the passages that followed this story the various descendants
of Noah established families and societies in different places. From this
biblical story came the belief that Ham’s descendants became Africans,
and Noah’s curse made them the perpetual “servants” of others. Some
interpreters of the story even claimed that Ham had dark skin; this made it
easier to believe Africans were descended from the tribe of Ham.
Another religious view held that Europeans were doing Africans a
favor by buying them as slaves. Europeans convinced themselves this was
the Christian thing to do. Africans were savages, cannibals, heathens,
pagans who could only benefit from hearing about Jesus Christ and the
fundamentals of the Christian faith. Christian purchasers woul give them a
better life away from African captivity.
Of course, the question of whether to educate African slaves and
teach them Christian precepts created uncomfortable conundrums for
slaveowners. An educated slave might question his status (and many did).
Slaves learning of the Christian faith and the teachings of Jesus might also
wonder about the inconsistencies in the beliefs of their masters. Some
Christian Europeans believed it was unjust to own a slave who was a
Christian (Muslim slaves were another matter). Depending on time, place,
and circumstance, slaves in Portuguese and Spanish colonies, professing
themselves Christians, were manumitted on an individual basis.
Most slaveowners ignored any troubling sense of Christian
morality and literally worked their slaves to death. The average life
expectancy of a slave on a sugar plantation was about seven years.
Planting and harvesting sugar cane was hard enough work; processing the
cane into sugar required long hours of grueling labor that physically
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exhausted even the strongest slaves. Plantation owners calculated the cost
of a slave purchase every seven years against not working a slave to death
and found it cost-effective to use up the slave. Slave mortality exceeded
net increase in Caribbean colonies, necessitating a constant renewal of the
labor supply.
Slaveowners bought slaves to perform a variety of tasks beyond
field hand work. “African slaves were employed as servants, masons,
carpenters, leather-workers, washerwomen and cooks, as well as in
plantations and in the textile obrajes or workshops,” notes Blackburn (p.
135). In the colonial period South Carolina concentrated on the
production of rice, a staple requiring clearing of trees, building levees and
ditches, and making sluice gates to control water flow. Rice came from
Madagascar and the Guinea Coast of Africa, and many slaves were already
familiar with its cultivation. Slaves planted, flooded, drained, hoed, dried,
and weeded the fields, many of these tasks done repeatedly, knee-deep in
water and stooped over much of the time. At harvest the rice had to be
cut, sheaved, brought to the mill, and then pounded, winnowed, screened,
and packed in barrels. From just over 10,000 pounds in 1698, rice
production reached more than 83 million pounds in 1770.
Able-bodied men constituted the main slave work force in the
fields, but a significant number of female slaves were also brought to the
Americas. Large-scale plantation owners employed overseers who formed
work gangs, and over time a slave hierarchy of responsibility developed.
Work gangs often included female slaves. Successful plantation owners
knew how to organize the work; gangs were formed according to age and
ability. Children, strong men, women and less physically fit men, and
older slaves had specifically assigned tasks.
With each new generation came the result of the union of
slavemaster and female slave. The role of mulatto offspring in slave
societies varied from one area to another. Generally, mulattoes in Spanish,
Portuguese, and French colonies were freed much more often than in the
English colonies, and ambitious mulattoes could achieve success in
business activities. After several generations, light-skinned mulattoes
might pass for white, a crossing made easier with accumulated wealth. By
contrast, in the English slave colonies, a person was black no matter how
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much the racial strain was diluted, and that person, like his or her parents,
would also be a slave.
The French went to extremes in defining race. Moreau de St-Mery,
a French planter on Saint Domingue in the late 18th century, compiled a
table listing 128 categories of mixed-blood combinations, the most
extreme being one part black to 127 parts white (in genealogical terms,
one of a person’s great-great-great-great-great-grandparents was black, all
others were white). French colonials commonly spoke of quadroons (a
quarter black) and octoroons (an eighth black). Portuguese authorities
organized militia companies according to color and status, and the colors
included pardos e bastardos forros (free mulattoes and half-castes), pretos
y pardos forros (free blacks and mulattoes), pretos e mesticos forros (free
blacks and free mixed-bloods), indios e bastardos (Indians and halfcastes). As noted earlier, the Spaniards defined sixteen racial categories,
working out terms for offspring of white and red, white and black, white
and mestizo, mestizo and mulatto, and so forth, but gave up when it
proved impossible to tell by sight into which category a person of color
belonged. Whites of the ruling class were determined to keep people of
color defined as the Other; colonial plantation society was an exclusive
one, not an inclusive one.
The English colonial societies of North America were distinct from
their counterparts in the Caribbean and South America in another
important regard. Unlike the French, Portuguese, Spanish, and British
Caribbean colonies, the North American colonies experienced a net gain in
their slave population through natural increase. In other words, birth rates
exceeded death rates. Much of the reason for this stemmed from the work
done by the slaves. Tobacco cultivation in North America was less
strenuous than sugar cane in the Caribbean or Brazil, and the climate was
more temperate. Arduous labor done by females in the sugar cane fields
resulted in fewer pregnancies and a higher infant mortality. The slave
colonies in North America made the net gain a benefit by defining slavery
in perpetuity. A child born of slave parents was also a slave.
The heyday of plantation agriculture occurred in the 18th century.
Cargoes of sugar, molasses, rum, tobacco, indigo, rice, and other New
World products made the rounds of Europe and Africa in what became
known as the Triangular Trade. In the Western Hemisphere, the Sugar
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Islands served as cash cows for their mother countries. France acquired
the western half of the island of Santo Domingo from Spain in 1697; a
century later it had become France’s richest colony. When the slaves
revolted there, Napoleon Bonaparte was so anxious to recover the lost
revenue that he swindled Carlos IV out of the Louisiana Territory in order
to establish a base from which his armies could put down the revolt.
Anyone puzzling over why French, English, Dutch, Danish, and Spanish
heritages can be found in close proximity on the Caribbean islands of
Guadalupe, Anguilla, the Virgin Islands, and the Dominican Republic, as
well as Antigua, St. Christopher-Nevis, Montserrat, Dominica, Martinique,
Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Barbados, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago,
not to mention the Netherlands Antilles islands, the Bahamas, and other
small islands, need only look at the sugar cane produced in the 18th
century and the Africans who were brought there to work and die on the
plantations.
Abolishing the Slave Trade
The immorality of slavery went ignored until the late 18th century.
Except for the Quakers, no European nation involved in the slave trade
worried overmuch about the buying and selling of human beings except as
how much profit could be made from the business. Perhaps the changing
times began to shed a little light on the immorality of slavery. It seemed
oxymoronic to believe that all men were created equal, as Thomas
Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence, yet to own slaves, as
Jefferson did. A few men thought twice about it. John Newton, a captain
who made one slave voyage too many, experienced an epiphany, became a
Quaker, and called for abolition of the slave trade. He also wrote Amazing
Grace.
It seems ironic that England, a major player in the 18th-century
slave trade, should lead the vanguard for the ending of that same trade.
Some modern cynics claim that with the English colonies on mainland
North America having been lost to independence, and Jamaica already
plentiful with slaves, the British colonies needed no further imports.
Scholars note the growth of free trade, the Industrial Revolution, new
technologies, and the rise of capitalist entrepreneurs as factors affecting
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the slave trade. No one issue began the change in attitude towards slavery,
though the Quakers merit notice for their early condemnation of it.
Reform and change came in increments. With colonies sending
sugar and other products to Europe, Great Britain could hardly abolish
slavery without serious adverse effects on both European and Western
Hemisphere economies. There were also at the time a substantial number
of people who sincerely believed that Africans in the Americas lived a
better life as slaves there than they would have as slaves in Africa. The
evil lay in the slave trade, not slavery itself. Nonetheless, Great Britain
called for abolition of the slave trade. End the traffic in human beings, and
eventually slavery itself would end. Meanwhile, slaveowners would be
compelled to take better care of their slaves since the supply of new slaves
would cease.
Two major leaders in Great Britain emerged as strong advocates
for the abolition of the slave trade. Thomas Clarkson was a lifelong
abolitionist whose 1787 pamphlet, “A Summary View of the Slave Trade
and of the Probable Consequences of Its Abolition,” provided data on the
moral and social injustice of the slave trade. It was Clarkson who had
published the shocking illustration of the cargo capacity of the Brookes.
William Wilberforce founded the Society for Effecting the Abolition of
the Slave Trade, better known as the Anti-Slavery Society. As a member
of the House of Commons, Wilberforce sponsored one anti-slave trade bill
after another. Clarkson and Wilberforce, along with Granville Sharp,
Edmund Burke, Charles James Fox, and the younger William Pitt, aroused
the conscience of a nation. In 1807 Parliament passed a law abolishing the
slave trade. From that time on the resources of the British Navy were used
to end contraband trade, and Parliament used its influence and political
power to compel Spain and Portugal to end slave trafficking.
The year 1807 marked a major turning point in the campaign
against slavery, but the struggle to end slavery itself remained to be won.
In the Americas the United States, Portugal’s Brazil, Spain’s Cuba and
Puerto Rico, and other European possessions still permitted slavery. It
would take almost another century before the nations of the world finally
outlawed slavery, and even then, in specific areas and in “exceptions to the
rule,” the buying and selling of human beings would continue into modern
times.
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For Further Reading
Blackburn, Robin. The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque
to the Modern, 1492-1800 (1997).
Curtin, Philip D. The African Slave Trade: A Census (1969).
Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1966).
Klein, Herbert S. African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
(1986).
Mannix, Daniel P., and Cowley, Malcolm. Black Cargoes: A History of
the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1518-1865 (1962).
Pope-Hennessy, James. Sins of the Fathers: A Study of the Atlantic Slave
Trade, 1441-1807 (1968).
Rawley, James A. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A History (1981).
Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade,
1440-1870 (1997).
Tannenbaum, Frank. Slave and Citizen:
(1946).
The Negro in the Americas
97
CHAPTER 7:
COLONIAL BRAZIL
Had it not been for some contrary winds, all of South America
might have become Spanish territory in the 16th century. After all, both
Spain and Portugal had agreed to the Treaty of Tordesillas and the Line of
Demarcation. Spain would sail west to the Indies, though concerns were
being raised as to whether Columbus had reached the Far East. Portugal
would follow the sea route it had pioneered down the coast of Africa and
east across the Indian Ocean. But the treaty did not take into account the
shape and size of yet undiscovered land, nor the sailing ships that steered
their way at the mercy of the winds. It was such a wind that blew Pedro
Alvarez Cabral far to the west of his intended course in 1500. He sighted
land to the west that Portugal would declare (not without some argument
from Spain) lay east of the Line of Demarcation. Over the next three
centuries Portugal would more than make good on that claim.
To be sure, Spain and Portugal shared a similarity in culture,
religion, heritage, and language. Both countries went through Roman,
Moorish, and Reconquest periods. By the early 16th century they had
become early modern European nations with similar societies. A Spanish
hidalgo held the same status as the Portuguese fidalgo. Still, there were
significant differences. The Portuguese had considerable experience in
fishing, maritime commerce, and voyages of discovery, and in those
activities acted much more sympathetically and respectfully to mariners
than did the Spanish. As a rule seamen occupied a very low level in
Spanish society. The Portuguese put their biggest cities on the seacoast; it
is no accident that the very name Portugal stems from oporto (the port).
Portuguese-founded colonies featured seacoast cities, though they were
also a land-based society with great estates.
Another significant difference lies in Portugal’s reliance on trade
rather than conquest of peoples in the lands they encountered. The Far
East spice trade, tropical export agriculture (especially sugar), and the
slave trade had Portuguese dealing with rulers of kingdoms in Africa and
Asia rather than attempting to conquer them. The Portuguese had more
and longer experience with African slavery than did the Spaniards and
early on almost monopolized the slave trade at its African points of origin.
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In fact, the geographical proximity of Brazil and Africa gave Africans an
important role in Brazil both in its colonial and national periods.
The Portuguese tended to be a more tolerant society than was
Spain. Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain found a haven in Portugal,
and those who nominally converted to Christianity were an important
element in Portuguese commerce. By contrast, the New Christians (Jews
who converted to the Catholic faith and could thus remain in Spain) were
looked upon with great suspicion by the Church. Whereas the Spaniards
claimed jealously to guard their “purity of blood,” the Portuguese seemed
much more tolerant in their willingness to mix with other peoples. Above
all, Portugal was a very small country, and during the colonial period it
tried to operate on three continents at once. It could not match Spain in its
concentration on Mexico and South America. Apart from the Philippines
and Guam, Spain made no impact on Asia. Portugal retained the island of
Macau (off the coast of China) until 1999 and did not grant Angola and
Mozambique their independence until 1975. A Portuguese outpost was
kept at Goa until taken over by India in the 1950s, and Portugal fought off
the Dutch for control of trade in the East Indies (now Indonesia) until
1750.
For decades after Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal, the
Portuguese did not know how to go about colonizing this unexpected
territory. Brazil seemed to have great potential, but for what? The interior
was an infinitely complex land of tropical rainforest, semiarid scrubland,
arable land, and a coastline that invited urban settlement. But no precious
metals would be found until gold was discovered in 1695. Development
required that something there be grown, produced, or traded. The native
peoples of Brazil, whose societies varied between sedentary and nomadic,
did not offer much help.. They lacked the strong tribute system of the
Aztecs and had no tradition of slavery or, taken as slaves, how to survive
as captives.
For most of the 16th century and longer in some places, the
Portuguese stuck close to the coastline. Early Brazil was a string of oceanside settlements, a contrast to the Spaniards who went far inland and
started main settlements on cool plateaus. Brazil’s interior seemed
uninhabited except for Indians who kept curious adventurers out until
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European weapons superiority pushed them back. It was a forbidding
country, apparently uninviting to settlement or development.
If Brazil was to function as a colony, its exports would have to be
tropical products, and trading locations therefore followed Portuguese
traditions and were located on the Atlantic seaboard. The first commodity
that attracted Portuguese attention was the dye yielded by the Brazilwood
tree, useful for coloring the textiles produced in Europe. To spices from
the Far East Portugal now had another viable tropical export, and the
Portuguese hoped it would compare with the ivory and gold obtained from
its African trade. The king of Portugal let out contracts to individuals to
trade in Brazilwood. Somewhat shrewdly, the contract specified that
contractors had to discover so many new leagues of coastline per year, a
policy the Portuguese successfully followed in their southward exploration
of the African coast. A considerable trade soon developed, but no
settlements in the sense of towns were founded. Portuguese factors (from
which is derived the modern term “factory”) traded European products for
lengths of Brazilwood logs, then stored them for the date when ships
would come to take the logs to Europe. The factories-outposts and
storehouses-were usually located on off-shore islands rather than the
Brazilian mainland. The natives, who had not used Brazilwood among
themselves as a trading commodity, had to learn its value from the
Portuguese. The factory traded knives and axes to the Indians and told
them the correct lengths to be cut. Before long the trade had depleted the
best Brazilwood areas along the coastline. Some penetration of the
interior would have to be made.
By 1530 there were still no permanent Portuguese settlements in
Brazil. The slow effort invites comparison with Spain in the thirty years
following 1492 as Spaniards formed their institutions and patterns of
occupation, and laid plans for the conquest of the mainland. The only
Portuguese settlers at this point were some outcasts living among the
Indians. They would later serve an important purpose as interpreters and
intermediaries, playing a more significant role than their counterparts in
Spanish areas. The Portuguese seemed to adapt quickly to life among the
Indians. More shipwrecks occurred along the Atlantic shore, so more
castaways survived by living with local tribes. Portugal also took the
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opportunity to banish undesirable people such as convicts from the
homeland to Brazil.
John III decided in 1530 to make up for lost time by colonizing the
entire coastline of Brazil at once. Between 1530 and 1550 he employed
the donatario system, drawing upon a medieval land policy already proven
successful on the Madeira and Azores islands. He divided Brazil into
twelve captaincies and assigned them to private individuals. The
captaincies were hereditary and had extensive judicial and administrative
powers. Noble, prominent, and well-connected people, with the personal
resources to carry out colonization projects, received the appointments in a
curious combination of private capital and government sanction.
The plan to colonize the entire coastline at once was audacious at
best, and realistically could not hope to succeed. Grantees really did not
have the resources needed to make the captaincies work. Other colonizing
nations followed the practice of setting up one settlement, getting it well
established, and proceeding from there. Of the twelve captaincies, four
were never settled, and four were settled for a short time only. The
remaining four led to permanent settlements, and two of these, Sao
Vicente and Pernambuco, proved important over time. Pernambuco’s
captain, Duarte Coelho, merits notice, largely because he committed
considerable capital into the venture. By 1575 Coelho’s son was operating
fifty sugar mills and exporting more than fifty shiploads of sugar a year.
His example, however, was exceptional rather than typical.
Portuguese colonists soon found obtaining provisions on their own
presented serious problems. They had to adapt to a new soil and climate
in which European plants might or might not thrive. It seemed much
easier to barter with the Indians for food, and they soon became used to
manioc, a root that could be made into meal. It soon became a staple food
for the Portuguese rather than European wheat. Seeking to expand their
economic base, the Portuguese turned to the cultivation of sugar cane. The
northeastern provinces of Pernambuco and Bahia after 1550 were dotted
with sugar plantations known as fazendas (large estates).
The Portuguese and Indian Labor
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With no capital available to build mills or import slaves, the
plantation owners attempted to barter with the Indians for their labor. The
indigenes, however, were not interested in doing back-breaking work in
return for the lengths of copper wire the Portuguese used to tempt them.
Desperate for labor, the Portuguese quickly moved from buying captives
from friendly Indians to going on slave raids themselves. Actual Indian
slavery became more prominent in Brazil than in the Spanish colonies, but
it was a poor second to African slavery. African slaves were more skilled
and lived longer in captivity than did the Indians. The mortality rate
among Indians from European diseases was shockingly high.
The native peoples of Brazil may have had tribal names unfamiliar
to North American ears-Tupinamba, Tamoio, Guarani, Aimore, and many
others, but the tribes illustrated a tremendous diversity in geography and
culture. The Portuguese, secure in the belief of their time that their
European culture and Catholic faith were far superior to whatever the
Indians might possess, simply ignored native religious beliefs. They
considered the Indians lazy for not working beyond acquiring life’s
necessities, and they condemned ritual cannibalism, going around naked,
infanticide, and other practices without ever attempting to understand why
the Indians performed such activities. The Portuguese presented their
alternative to the Indians: accept Catholic Christianity or accept the “just”
wars that would be waged against them, the survivors put into slavery to
labor on the plantations.
Jesuit missionaries opposed the slave-hunters but had their own
agenda for Christianizing the natives. They brought them from the interior
to aldeias, villages under religious supervision, offering such inducements
as fishhooks, axes, and beads. Once in the aldeias, there was little
difference between native work obligations and slave labor. Tens of
thousands were thus brought under Portuguese control, and tens of
thousands died, from European epidemics of smallpox, measles, and
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influenza; from two centuries of war; and from being worked to death on
the plantations. Trapped by the beliefs of their time, the Jesuits could only
commit the souls of the Indian dead to the blessings of heaven and work
hard at bringing still more Indians down to replenish the numbers lost.
Jesuits fought settlers over control of the Indians, even as they
approved the importation of African slaves. The Portuguese fought hostile
Indians, usually with the aid of Indian allies. Indians, motivated by
vengeance and long-standing tribal rivalries, joined the Portuguese to war
against other tribes. Besides the excuse of just wars, Portuguese settlers
obtained slaves through “ransom” expeditions-allegedly buying slaves
from tribes but often as not taking captive the native sellers as well.
The success of the Brazilian colony came at a heavy price to its
original inhabitants. Whatever the economic effort made by the
Portuguese-Brazilwood, tobacco and sugar plantations, cattle raising, gold
mining-Indians lost their land, their independence, and their lives. The
Portuguese Crown approved slavery for Indians taken in just wars, a policy
that amounted to selective slavery under government supervision. Of an
estimated two and a half million Brazilian Indians in 1500, only about
100,000 remained at the beginning of the 21st century.
The Dutch in Brazil
The growth of European markets for sugar overwhelmed the
Atlantic sugar islands after 1550, inviting plantation development in
Brazil. To replace the unreliable and mortal Indians, Portuguese sugar
planters began to import African slaves through the connection to Angola.
By the early 17th century African slaves constituted a majority of the
population in northeastern Brazil. The region’s warm climate and
proximity to Europe made it perfect for sugar cultivation. Portuguese
settlers came to set up cities, create fazendas, and start an oligarchy similar
to the Spanish encomenderos in their control of the town councils.
Into this embryonic colony came the Dutch in 1624. Unhappy
under the repressive rule of Catholic Habsburg monarchs, the Protestant
Dutch had successfully broken away from Spanish rule around 1580. The
Netherlands (Holland, Belgium, and Flanders) was organized as a
confederation of states represented by the States-General, a parliamentary
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body that dealt with foreign affairs and defense. Before long this minor
country became a major player in world politics, especially through its
powerful navy. The Dutch soon had bases of operation and outposts in
southern Africa, the East Indies, North America, and the West Indies.
Having established a successful East Indies Company, the States-General
created the West Indies Company to operate in the Western Hemisphere.
The West Indies Company (WIC) looked around to found a colony
and to set up trade with that colony, but apart from what became Dutch
Guiana and some Caribbean islands, the pickings seemed slim. However,
Brazil offered a possible target. Portugal’s young King Sebastian had died
on a myopic crusade against the Muslims in 1578; his great-uncle Henry,
already an old man, lasted only two years and died without heirs. Philip II,
King of Spain and related by blood to the Portuguese royal family,
successfully claimed the throne of Portugal. For the next sixty years a
Spanish Habsburg monarch would rule over both kingdoms.
In 1621 Philip III died, and his son, Philip IV, was only sixteen
years old. Here was an opportunity for the Dutch to move on Brazil. The
Dutch had no love for Spain and its navy, and the government, along with
Dutch pirates, harassed Spanish ships crossing the Atlantic. The
Portuguese Brazilian colony could expect little help from Spain. Initial
Dutch attacks captured a section of the Pernambuco coast. Then, in 1628,
Admiral Piet Heyn captured the silver fleet sailing from Mexico, providing
a treasure that gave the WIC the prestige and power necessary to establish
itself as a colony at Pernambuco. Dutch troops enlisted the help of the
Tapuya Indians to fight the Brazilian creoles, and by 1637 the Dutch
claimed success in making New Netherlands a permanent colony.
The States-General appointed Johan Maurits as governor-general
of the colony. An enlightened and intelligent administrator, Maurits spent
the next seven years clearing out the remaining resistance to Dutch rule,
and established good relations with Brazilian creoles, Dutch Jews, and the
Tapuya. He made the town of Recife the capital of Pernambuco, brought
in artists to paint the local scenery, encouraged immigration, and promoted
the sugar industry. Under his administration the Dutch conducted the first
scientific studies of the tropical region’s diseases and plant remedies, its
flora and fauna, and its geology. Maurits set up an aviary, zoological and
botanical gardens, and the first European-founded astronomical
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observatory in the Western Hemisphere. The WIC held monopolies on the
slave trade, dyewood, and munitions, but the colonists were free to engage
in all other trade. Maurits reduced taxes, and bankers extended liberal
terms to sugar planters.
None of this was to last for long. In 1641 the Dutch were at their
peak of world power, with fur trading posts on the Hudson River and
Delaware Valley in North America, fortresses in Dutch Guiana, strategic
Caribbean islands including Aruba and Curacao, slave trading posts in the
part of Angola taken from the Portuguese, and sugar colonies in Brazil.
All of these territories placed a great strain on the resources of the StatesGeneral.
When Brazilian colonials revolted in 1645, the WIC
underestimated the seriousness of the revolt. It took the colony for
granted-until the rebels won several surprising victories. The new king of
a restored and independent Portugal, John IV, at first tried to conciliate the
Dutch, then lent support to the rebels by sending them supplies and
weapons. Competing fleets fought on the high seas until both sides were
exhausted.
In 1645 the States-General took over the responsibility of
supplying materials and troops from the WIC, but the New Netherlands
colony despaired when the States-General adopted a policy of austerity.
Dutch morale plummeted as soldiers’ pay was in arrears and supplies
were delayed. When the supplies arrived, they were inadequate. The
once-proud Dutch troops lost more battles. Then came the Battle of
Taborda in 1654, with the Portuguese soundly defeating the Dutch. Their
surrender marked the end of New Netherlands. Subsequent attempts to
retake Pernambuco failed. In 1660 England became allied to Portugal
through marriage, and the States-General faced the reality of dealing with
England in any more fighting with Portugal. The Dutch were allowed to
evacuate their settlements, some going to New Amsterdam, including
Dutch Jews who would begin a Jewish presence in North America after
1654. Even New Amsterdam was not secure, as in 1662 England took
over that colony and renamed it New York.
Could New Netherlands have worked as a colony carved out of
Brazil? The Dutch colonists were looked on as intruders, and above all
they stopped short of a full commitment to the sugar industry. In any
event, the colony never had a chance fully to prove itself, as threats of war
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were almost constant. Had the States-General given greater support to the
colony, a heavily indebted WIC might have been successful in the long
run. But by the late 1640s the government had had enough of the venture.
Amsterdam, capital of the strongest province in the Netherlands
confederation, withheld any further support, hamstringing the StatesGeneral. The Amsterdam merchants considered Pernambuco a morass and
refused to spend any more funds on it.
The Dutch presence in Brazil helped awaken the first nationalist
sentiments of the Brazilian creoles. Much more than the Portuguese, they
had fought a war and won a victory. Brazilians could boast they had
defeated a European power, one that had liberated itself from a Spain that
in turn had controlled Portugal. The victory thus weakened geographical,
social, and color barriers in Brazil and helped create a psychological and
social unity. Portuguese settlers began thinking of themselves more and
more as Brazilians.
Some Dutch legacies could be seen from their Brazilian adventure.
Recife had been a village of some 150 houses in 1624. When the Dutch
departed thirty years later, they left a small but growing city of 2,000
houses and the beginnings of an urban commercial class in Brazil.
Brazil, Angola, and Portugal in the 17th Century
Portugal derived much of its wealth from Brazil in the form of
sugar plantations. As it became known that Indians proved a poor source
of labor, the Portuguese increased the importation of African slaves from
their outposts in Angola. It seems curious that the Portuguese came to
condemn Indian slavery while supporting the African slave trade; the
question seems to have been rationalized by the view that African
societies, like those in Europe, had a tradition of slavery. Along with this
view was the economic imperative of slave labor needed in large numbers
on the plantations. It was an easy step for the Portuguese in establishing
the slave trade from Africa to the Azores to move it across the Atlantic to
Brazil. As other nations established sugar colonies, they too took a more
active part in the African slave trade.
Once a rare luxury, by 1600 sugar was becoming an item of general
consumption in Europe. Its production began in the Mediterranean area,
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then to the islands in the Atlantic, across to the Brazilian mainland, and
also to the Caribbean islands. By 1650 Pernambuco and Bahia were the
world’s largest sugar producing regions. The value of Brazilian sugar was
almost as much as Spanish silver. 250 sugar mills in Brazil produced
enough sugar to load 300 ships annually for Europe. Dutch pirates seized
so many that Portugal had to follow Spain’s earlier lead in setting up a
convoy system to protect the ships.
As the number of Brazilian sugar plantations grew, so did the
demand for slave labor. In the 17th century some 15,000 slaves a year
went from Africa to the Brazilian northeast on a passage lasting between
30 and 45 days. Mortality among the captives was high, though not as bad
as on longer voyages. Most of these slaves came from factories (slave
markets) in Angola and Congo, the rest from ports elsewhere on the west
African coast. Unlike Spanish colonies, Africans became a majority of the
population in northeastern Brazil.
The type of slavery differed
significantly from slaves in the Spanish colonies where they mainly
worked as domestic servants. In Brazil, slaves were used chiefly in the
backbreaking labor of sugar cultivation. Later on Cuba and other islands
adopted the plantation system and imported hundreds of thousands of
African slaves to work there.
African slaves became ethnically mixed; that is, owners found it to
their advantage to buy slaves from different areas that spoke different
languages. This cut down on the possibility of slaves plotting revolts. It
also compelled the slaves to learn the language of their masters in order to
communicate with them. However, plantation slaves became far less
acculturated than would have been the case had they worked as domestics
or for artisans. Their isolation from the dominant society enabled many of
them to preserve their language and culture, at least for a time.
If unable to plot rebellion, slaves could and did try to run away.
For Brazilian slaves, a vast area in South America offered possible refuge.
Fugitive Africans hid in the interior and tried to establish quilombos,
communities organized on the lines of African kingships. Eventually
authorities would track them down, destroy the quilombos, and return the
survivors to the plantations. But one quilombo lasted for more than fifty
years and had a population of 20,000 people.
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Plantations were located so as to provide the greatest economic
advantages. Planters set them up near the sea for ease of transporting the
sugar, and also in close proximity to sugar mills. Powerful landowners
leased sections of land to lavradores (tenant farmers) who often had their
own slaves. Sugar plantations operated on a grand scale, a practice made
necessary by the large outlay of capital, freight costs, the price of slaves,
and other expenses. Sugar mills used between 100-150 slaves per mill;
tenant farmers had about thirty. The dependence upon African slave labor
in the sugar industry was complete.
Most of the plantation slaves were male, though there were also
female field workers. The men usually lacked a sexual outlet as owners
claimed the women for themselves. There seems little concern during the
colonial period for slaves as human beings. Purchased as property, many
were worked to death. Seven years on the plantation before death from
overwork or disease was about average. The work was seasonal in nature,
meaning that harvest time required long hours of fiendish, arduous labor;
other times, slaves might have little to do.
Not all slaves worked in the fields. Plantation life, whether
Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, or Dutch, all had basic similarities.
Within the casa grande (the big house of the owner) masters had
mammies raise their children and employed trusted servants as confidants.
The men put their white women on a pedestal and were promiscuous with
their female slaves. Loving luxury, planters always seemed to be in debt
despite the income from their products. Sugar plantation commerce was
export oriented, intensive, and based on a foreign slave labor supply; and
in Brazil, slavery continued until 1888.
Even with the importation of African slaves, Portuguese settlers
still needed more laborers for their plantations. Despite the lack of success
in forcing Indians into slave labor, they persisted in sending out slave raids
well into the 17th century. The city of Sao Paulo became famous for its
expeditions into the Brazilian interior. These expeditions became known
as bandeiras, after the flags carried on them, and those who went on them
were called bandeirantes. In effect, bandeiras operated as mobile
communities, exploring and raiding for upwards of two years in all
directions from the coast. They even stopped to plant crops on their way
into the interior, harvesting them on the way back. Bandeira ventures were
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semi-commercial; investors at home shared in the profits. In many ways,
the bandeirantes resembled the French metis, the courier du bois who
explored the interior of Canada, and the early frontiersmen who penetrated
the unexplored regions of British North America and the early United
States. One important difference remained: bandeirantes combined
exploration with slave raiding.
These slave-raiding expeditions were most extensive and profitable
in the first half of the 17th century, a time when the Dutch controlled part
of Angola and thus curtailed the Brazilian opportunity to buy African
slaves. Indians did not accept conquest passively. They knew the jungle
and fought fiercely for their freedom. But the bandeirantes learned the
ways of the forest, which plants yielded edible foods, the use of canoes,
learning native languages, and practicing slash and burn agriculture. They
also wielded a technological superiority in their weapons. Muskets of the
17th century were deadlier than their counterparts of a hundred years
earlier.
Slave-hunting declined after 1650 when the Dutch left Brazil and
the African trade was restored. Bandeirantes then put more effort into the
search for mineral wealth, an effort that at last paid off when gold was
discovered in 1695.
An Important Portuguese Leader on Three Continents
During the 17th and 18th centuries Portugal operated its empire on
three continents, Europe, South America, and Africa. The economic and
political connections Portugal established between these areas called for
capable bureaucrats familiar with their problems and issues. One
important bureaucrat, Salvador de Sa, exemplified the role of career
diplomat and politician on all three continents. As a colonial official, de
Sa symbolized the dependence between Portugal, Brazil, and Angola, as
well as connections between Portuguese Brazil and Spanish South
America. His mother Spanish, his father Portuguese, de Sa married a rich
Spanish widow but made his own fortune by owning extensive properties,
sugar plantations, and slaves. His career called for him at various times to
be an explorer, admiral, and politician.
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As a young man de Sa went on bandeiras and traveled across the
Brazilian pampas (plains) region to visit the Spanish mines at San Luis
Potosi. He learned Indian languages, fought against the Dutch occupation
of Angola and its seizure of the west African slave market, and crossed the
Atlantic Ocean at least eighteen times on various missions. His political
opportunity came in the late 1630s when Portugal successfully revolted
against Spanish Habsburg rule and once against asserted its independence.
Under John IV, founder of the House of Braganza, de Sa served as
governor of the Rio de Janeiro province, siding with the Jesuits against the
paulistas (residents of Sao Paulo) who went on bandeiras. De Sa became
a member of Portugal’s Overseas Council and was an adviser to John IV.
Given command of a fleet of ships and made an admiral, de Sa attacked
the Dutch in Angola in 1647, then was instrumental in ousting them from
Brazil.
Salvador de Sa was not a particularly popular person as an
administrator. He practiced nepotism, giving jobs to many relatives, and
as governor imposed harsh taxes on the province’s citizens. But no one
doubted his administrative abilities. The Crown made him captain general
of the South in the 1650s, a powerful rank, but he may have gone too far
with his nepotism, taxes, and various controversial and expensive projects.
He went back to Portugal where he made the mistake of choosing the
wrong (that is, losing) side in a political dispute, but he finished his life in
the 1680s as once again an adviser to the Overseas Council. He was a
major figure in the retaining of Portuguese colonies against Dutch
aggression and in the development of the Brazilian sugar industry. As a
human being, he embodied the contradictions of the time in opposing
Indian slave labor even as he participated in the African slave trade.
The Golden Age of Brazil
For decades the Paulista bandeirantes had penetrated the interior of
Brazil looking for Indians to be taken into slavery, searching for gold and
emeralds, and in the process exploring previously unknown territory.
They finally found gold in the Minas Gerais region in 1695. News of the
discovery prompted a major gold rush, the creation of Villa Rica which
quickly evolved from mining camp to city, and a gold rush society that
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resembled other great historical gold rushes-Alaska, Australia, California,
South Africa, and others. They were all characterized by lawlessness, the
need for mining codes, attempts to establish government, and developing
better and more efficient methods of extracting gold. Unlike the gold
rushes of other nations, Brazil owed some of its treasure to the king of
Portugal, who was supposed to get his royal quinto (20%)-or at least to try
to get it.
Inevitably there were clashes betweeen those who were first on the
scene and those who came later. The Paulistas, the initial discoverers of
the gold fields, resented the emboabas, the later arrivals who soon
outnumbered the Paulistas but wanted their share. By 1705 the quarrel had
escalated to the level of a civil war that had to be put down by government
forces. Antonio de Albuquerque, a noted Portuguese leader in Minas
Gerais, helped settle the differences. Then a new issue caught their
attention. Their mother country had gone to war.
Between 1702 and 1713 England and France fought the War of the
Spanish Succession, a protracted power struggle to determine who would
rule Spain after the demise of Carlos II who had died without heirs. As an
ally of England, Portugal was automatically an enemy of France. In 1708
the French sent a fleet and a landing party to Rio de Janeiro. Initially
defeated, the French came back with reinforcements and captured the city.
Hearing this news, Antonio de Albuquerque urged the Paulistas and
emboabas to settle their differences and unite against the common enemy.
While Albuquerque led an army to relieve Rio de Janeiro, the cowardly
governor paid the French a large ransom to get them to leave. Denied a
battle, Albuquerque nonetheless was a popular leader, and he later became
governor of the Rio province.
Further gold discoveries saw new towns created and demands for
churches, doctors, taxes, and European (white) women. Much of the gold
produced went from the miners directly to their Negro and mulatto
mistresses and to prostitutes. Diamonds were also discovered, but the
Crown clamped down quite firmly on their sale, believing (quite rightly)
that a diamond glut could depress the European market price. Settlement
of the interior proceeded slowly after long delays, but by the 18th century a
cattle industry had developed in the Bahia backlands.
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Portuguese explorers, prospectors, and settlers continually
advanced west of the Treaty of Tordesillas line set back in 1494. The
1580-1640 period when Portuguese had lived under the Spanish monarchy
had been an opportune time for this expansion, since there was no
apparent conflict if both nations had the same ruler. As the movement
continued into the 18th century, both nations became concerned over
possible clashes over their South American boundaries. The diplomats
went to work and in 1750 Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of Madrid.
Jesuits, colonists, Paulistas, all were unhappy with the new boundaries, but
bandeira movements were pretty much over by then, and Spanish presence
east of the Andes had been minimal in the area claimed by Portugal.
Conflict would later erupt over the boundaries of Brazil, Uruguay,
Paraguay, and Argentina, but this was more a legacy of the colonial era
than a part of it.
Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire
The usual stereotype for Portuguese colonialism is quite unlike
Spain, as the image is of Portuguese intermarrying freely with no color
bars or prejudice. Actually, Portuguese attitudes varied widely according
to time, place, and people. In Brazil the colonists tried to enslave Indians,
with the clergy trying to protect them. A color line existed for Indians
until the 1750s, and beyond that for persons of African blood. In Angola,
the clergy discriminated against mulattoes and held them to inferior ranks
in the Church. Angola attracted few Portuguese women, and the Catholic
priests had to deal with Africans content with their Muslim faith. Slave
trading dominated Angolan society, making native Africans fair game for
the European entrepreneurs.
Like other colonizing nations, the Portuguese were susceptible to
racial and religious prejudice. However, the chances for manumission (a
master freeing a slave) were better in Brazil than in English, French, or
Dutch colonies. The Portuguese permitted religious worship to a degree
beyond other slave-holding nations. Brazil’s native-born mixed-bloods
became an aggressive group, spreading into the interior, looking for ways
to make a quick fortune. Brazilians clashed with Spaniards to the south
and with Jesuits in Paraguay and the Amazon region. Throughout its
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colonial period Brazil raised a people who were aggressive, flexible, and
with a growing sense of their differences from their mother country. No
middle class existed in Brazil, and white women were scarce. Ironically,
as time went on it seemed Brazil was becoming more prosperous than
Portugal. Colonial wealth went to Portugal, but the mother country could
not supply the goods needed by the colonists. Smuggling became
widespread during the colonial period, and colonists resented heavy taxes
and duties. By 1750 signs were appearing of colonial discontent that
would lead to eventual separation and independence.
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For Further Reading
Boxer, C.R. The Dutch in Brazil, 1624-1654 (1957).
Boxer, C.R. The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695-1750 (1962).
Boxer, C.R. Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 14151825 (1963).
Boxer, C.R. Salvador de Sa and the Struggle for Brazil and Angola
(1952).
Hemming, John. Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians
(1978).
Marchant, Alexander. From Barter to Slavery: The Economic Relations
of Portuguese and Indians in the Settlement of Brazil, 1500-1580
(1966).
Moog, Vianna. Bandeirantes and Pioneers (1964).
Morse, Richard M., ed. The Bandeirantes: The Historical Role of the
Brazilian Pathfinders (1965).
Schwartz, Stuart B. Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian
Society: Bahia, 1550-1835 (1985).
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CHAPTER 8:
FRANCE IN THE AMERICAS
At the time that Columbus set sail in pursuit of the Indies, France
was more interested in its rivalry with Austria, Spain’s ally in European
power politics. Their mutual target was the Italian peninsula. Its citystates, opposing each other commercially and artistically, offered a prime
target for French or Austrian control. Not until 1861 did Italy become a
united nation.
After Spain and Portugal divided up the “New World” and the
riches of the Indies in the Treaty of Tordesillas (as brokered by Pope
Alexander VI), a generation passed before the French thought over this
arrangement. The issue became one of considerable concern when
Spanish conquistadors began sending home large amounts of gold, silver,
and other Aztec and Inca treasure. Given the territory that increased in
size with each new report from some explorer, it seemed logical to the
French that Spain could not possibly control all the new-found lands, and
that the native peoples there could not all have known about Spain or
accepted its authority. So the French came up with some interesting
policies regarding the lands of the Western Hemisphere. One was the
“Doctrine of Consent” which declared, “That which touches all must be
approved by all.” In other words, unless the Spanish or Portuguese were
operating in a given area, that area was open to some other country for
exploitation-namely the French.
The French also had the insight to notice that the Pope hadn’t
consulted any native peoples in the framing of the Treaty of Tordesillas.
That being the case, the French developed a policy of working with the
native peoples, not conquering them. In fact, their relationships with the
Indians offer an interesting contrast to the attitudes and policies of the
Spanish, Portuguese, and (later) the English. For example, the French
took the view that the Indians they encountered were nomads and not
inhabitants of the lands where they lived. They therefore considered such
lands terra nullius, uninhabited land, and claimed the right to expand into
such lands. However, although the French never recognized aboriginal
title to land, they did respect territorial integrity-the actuality that native
peoples obviously lived and hunted in specific areas. This view created
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considerable ambiguity in land ownership and loyalty. In the view of the
king of France, Indians were his subjects; from the Indian perspective, they
saw themselves as sovereign allies of France.
A preferred policy that worked for the French in dealing with the
natives was le douceur, roughly translated as “friendly cooperation.” This
policy was practiced successfully where it worked to mutual advantage.
But it didn’t stop the French from wiping out the Caribs whom the French
considered deadly enemies, or joining Indian allies in elminating the
natives of St. Christopher Island. As will be seen below, the Iroquois,
hereditary enemies of the Huron, fought the French because the Huron had
become allies of France. In the 18th century the French waged a bloody
war against the Fox tribe in the Great Lakes because the Fox blocked the
French move westward in North America.
Early French Explorations in North America
The first king of France to take an active interest in the Western
Hemisphere was Francis I (ruled 1515-1547). In the 1520s Francis
patched up his differences with Carlos I of Spain over European territorial
disputes with the Peace of Cambrai (1529). Francis I then became curious
about the New World.
Five years earlier Francis I had commissioned Giovanni Verrazano,
one of those Italian seamen who, like Columbus, were always looking for
a sponsor. In 1524 Europe was abuzz with speculation concerning
Magellan’s epic effort to circumnavigate the globe. Verrazano, whose
reputation makes him closer to being a pirate than a navigator, crossed the
Atlantic Ocean and sailed along the coastline of North America. He may
have gone as far south as North Carolina, and he did enter New York
Harbor and saw the Hudson River (which is why the Verrazano Bridge is
named for him). He went on to explore the New England coast before
returning to France. His subsequent fate is uncertain; Indians in the West
Indies may have killed him in 1528.
In 1534 Francis I sent out another explorer on a more ambitious
expedition. This was Jacques Cartier, a respected navigator who may (or
may not) have been with Verrazano on the earlier voyage. At the time,
Europeans believed in global geographic symmetry. If Magellan had
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shown the way to a Southwest Passage through the strait named for him,
then surely there must be a Northwest Passage through which ships could
cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific above Canada, and from there to the
riches of the Orient. Modern knowledge may excuse this mistaken 16thcentury view of the world; explorers as late as the 1870s were still trying
to breach the Arctic ice and believed in such nonexistent places as the
Open Polar Sea. Anyway, Cartier came to North America by way of
Newfoundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and his first belief as he
headed up the St. Lawrence River was that it might lead to the Pacific
Ocean. He sailed up the river as far as the site of present-day Montreal.
Francis I hoped for reports of gold and precious metals just as
Spain was getting from Mexico and Peru. Cartier saw no mineral wealth,
but he met some Indians who traded maize (corn) with them. This was the
first maize the French had ever seen. An Iroquois chief agreed to send two
of his sons with Cartier back to France to bring back a report on the French
claims about their country. Cartier returned the next year and, amazingly
enough, brought the two boys back safe and sound. It was on this trip that
he formally named the bay and river after St. Lawrence on the saint’s day.
The French colonization attempt came with Cartier’s third voyage
in 1541. He sailed up the St. Lawrence River as far as the present location
of Quebec, but again he failed to find any precious metals. The Iroquois,
their suspicions aroused as to French motives, became hostile. Cartier
finally gave up and returned to France, his attempt at founding a colony a
failure.
For almost two decades the French made no further attempt to
explore or start a colony in North America. In the meantime, the
Protestant Reformation in Europe cracked the Catholic monolithic hold on
France. Gaspard Coligny, a Huguenot (French Protestant), rose to power.
In 1562 he endorsed the idea of a Huguenot colony in North America and
assigned the task to a fellow Huguenot, Jean Ribaut. Ribaut took a small
group of men to the coast of South Carolina and there built a small
outpost, Fort Charles. But its 26 inhabitants abandoned the place when
Ribaut returned to France.
Three years later Ribaut tried again, this time setting up Fort
Caroline, on the St. Johns River, just south of the modern boundary
between Florida and Georgia. The presence of this fort intruded on
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Spanish territory. An alarmed Spanish government sent Pedro Menendez
de Aviles to deal with the French and set up a Spanish outpost in northeast
Florida. Menendez made short work of the French settlers, killing all of
them. He then established the settlement of St. Augustine, a strategically
important but sparsely populated town that bears the distinction today of
being the oldest European-founded city in North America. The French got
the message and made no further effort to establish a colony so near to
Spanish territory.
A few years later France became embroiled in religious and
domestic problems that culminated in a major religious civil war. Francis
I died in 1547, replaced by his son, Henry II, who married Catherine de
Medici of the famous Italian noble house. They had three sons, and when
Henry II died in 1559, the eldest son, Francis II, became king. He lasted
long enough to marry the controversial Mary Queen of Scots, herself a
teenager, then died at age sixteen in 1560. Catherine de Medici then
placed her second son, Charles IX, on the French throne. A pliable
puppet, the young king agreed to his mother’s plot to remove the
Huguenots from France. On August 24, 1572-St. Bartholomew’s Eve-the
French started massacring their Huguenot neighbors. The war lasted more
than fifteen years and kept France out of the Western Hemisphere until the
next century.
French Intrusions in Brazil
While Cartier was trying to find a source of wealth in Canada (and
missing the possibilities of the fur trade), French explorers challenged
Portugal for trade in Brazil. The Portuguese had neglected their claim to
the east coast of South America, and the French took advantage of
Portugal’s minimal colonization effort. Word had gotten out about the
commercial value of Brazilwood, a tree whose wood yielded a highly
marketable dye for the growing clothmaking industry in Europe. France
claimed that freedom of the seas and free trade gave them the right to trade
with Brazil, and anyway, Portugal had not obtained the agreement of the
native peoples there for colonization. By the 1540s France was dealing
actively in the Brazilwood trade.
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In dealing with the native tribes, the French employed policies the
Portuguese either did not think of or else rejected; but the policies worked
well for the French. One idea was to exchange gifts and hostages, a
system that demonstrated to the Indians that the French were showing
considerable good faith. Actually, the hostages the French placed with the
Indians usually were outcasts and orphan boys from low-level society.
Whatever their status, the idea worked well, in North as well as South
America. The Indian hostages went to France and were exposed to French
society and customs (as well as disease).
The French hostages
intermarried and formed kinship ties with the native tribes. Each learned
the other's language; by 1547 the French had published a Tupinamba
language glossary used for trading purposes.
As a result of these policies, France did well in the Brazilwood
trade. French traders made no effort to interfere with native customs.
They even tolerated the practice of cannibalism, treating the natives on
their own terms. But the French never attempted any real settlement in
South America. The Portuguese managed to keep their claim to Brazil, if
only at a minimum level.
Return to Canada
The religious wars in France ended when Henry of Navarre, a
leading Huguenot, converted to the Catholic faith and became Henry IV,
founder of the Bourbon dynasty. Born a Catholic, converted to
Protestantism, then back to the Catholic faith, Henry IV seems to have
used religion for his political ends and to do it well. He issued the Edict of
Nantes, granting religious toleration to France’s Huguenots, and so put an
end to the conflict that had ravaged the country for almost twenty years.
French interest in Canada revived, and Henry IV promised a monopoly in
the fur trade to some of his old army friends, most notably Samuel
Champlain.
In 1603 Champlain was 36 years old and a veteran soldier, traveler,
and explorer. On a visit to the Spanish Empire he had seen how the
Indians were exploited. He developed the idea of honest trade and
cooperation with the Indians. Champlain was a busy man; he crossed the
Atlantic Ocean a dozen times in his service to France. As governor of
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New France (what the French called Canada), he governed “by France, but
for God.” At first the French struggled to survive in the early settlements.
Scurvy became a serious problem, solved when Champlain noticed that
the Indians did not fall victim to the disease. What were they doing that
the French were not doing? He observed that the Indians boiled the bark
from a certain tree and drank it as a tea. Although Champlain didn’t know
about ascorbutic acid or Vitamin C, he deduced there was something in the
tea that stopped scurvy. The French settlers drank the tea, and the scurvy
symptoms went away.
In 1608 Champlain founded a settlement at Quebec on the St.
Lawrence River. He and his men gained knowledge of Upper Canada, and
the Great Lakes region, following rivers and making arduous portages
(crossing land from one river to another, carrying all supplies and
equipment). Under Champlain French investors made a good profit from
the fur trade. French traders set up posts to trade with the Indians who
sold their goods for European manufactured items. Unfortunately and
probably unintentionally, Champlain polarized Indian-white relations for
the next 175 years. He traded with and sided with the first Indians with
whom he made friends, the Hurons. This powerful nation was a hereditary
enemy of the Iroquois, and when Champlain provided the Huron with
firearms, he drove the Iroquois into the arms of the English who were
starting to colonize the Atlantic seacoast.
Henry IV was assassinated in 1610, leaving a son, Louis XIII, still
a child. Cardinal Richelieu acted as regent, and Champlain lost monopoly
control of New France to a new group of court favorites. The French
investors wanted all the profits of the fur trade without putting forth a
royal effort-a very frustrating situation for Champlain.
In 1615 Champlain retired to Quebec, where he died twenty years
later. He left Quebec as a major outpost of France, his efforts to some
degree unappreciated by the nation he served. Lake Champlain, between
New York and Vermont, is named for him. The river leading from the
lake to the St. Lawrence River is the Richelieu River.
Without the leadership of men such as Champlain, the French
government made some costly miscalculations. French explorers, for
example, did not head north from their Canadian operations. This left an
opportunity for the English to follow up on Henry Hudson’s discovery of
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Hudson’s Bay. By the 1680s the English had established an outpost in
Hudson’s Bay and issued a charter to the Hudson’s Bay Fur Company
(still in business after more than 320 years). Over time the French would
feel boxed in by the English to the north and south of New France.
Interesting to note, “Canada” was not a concept either for the French or
English. The western half of modern Canada was not settled or much
explored by the French, and its provinces such as British Columbia and
Alberta would not federate until the 1860s when Canada became a selfgoverning Dominion in the British Commonwealth of Nations.
Another factor working against French colonization in Canada was
the fact that few French women emigrated there. In their absence,
Frenchmen married Indian women, and their children were called metis.
Many metis became the frontiersmen and couriers du bois (literally,
runners through the woods) who would guide others into the Canadian
interior. After the War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1713, the
English, who had captured and retained the Acadian Peninsula, distrusted
its French-Canadian inhabitants. In the 1750s the English forcibly moved
many of the Acadians out, sending them to Louisiana, where their
descendants are known as Cajuns (a corruption of the word Acadian).
Overall, New France never really became a true colony. It
operated as a company on a large geographic scale, with an emphasis on
commerce, not colonization. New France, headquartered in Quebec,
became the major center for the fur trade, a term the French generously
defined as including not only fur-bearing mammals but also walruses and
whales (for their oil). The native peoples served as fur trappers,
processing the furs and bringing them to outposts where the furs were
traded for European goods.
French Exploration of the Mississippi Valley
By the mid-17th century the French had explored around the Great
Lakes and were dealing in furs and trade goods with the Indians. As they
moved into what they claimed was terra nullius, they mapped the lakes,
mountains, and rivers. There were many explorers and expeditions, but
several achieved great fame and prominence in their own time as well as a
place in history textbooks. In the 1670s the French looked south to the
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Mississippi Valley whose river was the largest in what later became the
United States. Its huge watershed included as tributaries the Missouri and
Ohio Rivers and the many streams that fed into them. The French wanted
to explore, map, and claim the vast region and the wealth the fur trade
would bring to them.
Geographic knowledge in the 17th century was still crude. Many
people believed a river could flow in four directions from an interlocking
source even though it could easily be demonstrated that this was a physical
impossibility.
Distances in North America were continually
underestimated. The statements of Indians were either believed or
accepted skeptically, the French conceding that language difficulties made
it easy for misunderstandings, distortions, and lies to confuse interpreters.
Also, many Indians just wanted Europeans to go somewhere else, so they
told them what they wanted to hear.
The task of exploration was made most difficult by the ignorance
of everyone regarding the unknown. Vague boundaries, unknown rivers
and mountain ranges, and cartographical errors all contributed to disputes
between Spain, France, and England in North America. Spain had
founded Santa Fe around 1610; the English, Jamestown in 1607; the
French, Quebec in 1608. Despite the great distances between these three
settlements, the European nations could see it was only a matter of time-a
century, perhaps only decades-when they would be bumping into each
other. The maps of North America drawn in the 17th and 18th centuries
show enormous territories claimed by the English on their maps, the
French on theirs, and the Spanish on theirs. Seldom did such maps
conform to geographic and political realities.
Still, the French determined to explore the Mississippi River from
its headwaters as far south as they could get before running into the
Spaniards. Two great expeditions stand out in the 1670s and 1680s: the
work of Marquette and Joliet, and the effort of La Salle. Jacques
Marquette, a Jesuit priest with a talent for learning native languages,
learned of a “great river” during a meeting in 1668 with the Illinois tribe.
These Indians had been pressured by the powerful Sioux nation to go north
and east to the Lake Michigan area, where they met Father Marquette.
Louis Joliet, a fur trader, received a commission from Count Louis de
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Frontenac, the governor of New France, to explore the route of the great
river. In 1672 Joliet and Marquette formed a team to accomplish this goal.
On May 17, 1673, the two set out for a river known only by rumor.
Indian guides took them and a few other men by canoe. They paddled
down Green Bay to Fox River, up the Fox near its source, and then by
portage to the headwaters of the Wisconsin River. A week later they were
on the Mississippi River, the first Europeans to see the “Father of Waters”
since de Soto’s disaster in 1542. They headed south and made it as far as
the juncture of the Arkansas River to the Mississippi. Hearing there were
Spaniards in the lower Mississippi region, they turned back and were at
Green Bay by September, having covered 2,500 miles. Marquette, in poor
health from the exertions of the trip, died on May 18, 1675. Joliet fared
better, winning an appointment from Frontenac as royal cartographer and
getting an estate by the St. Lawrence River.
Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle, was born in France to a
rich merchant family and was educated by the Jesuits. At age 23 he went
to Montreal, became involved in the fur trade, and learned Iroquoian and
other Indian languages. Like Marquette, La Salle heard stories from the
Indians of a great river running to what the Europeans were convinced
was the Vermilion Sea. La Salle, in his innocence of North American
geography, thought the Vermilion Sea might be the Gulf of California. If
so, it would be easy to go from Quebec to China!
After making several expeditions to the Great Lakes country, La
Salle, with Governor Frontenac’s blessing, determined to build on
Marquette and Joliet’s work. He hit on the idea of erecting forts and
trading posts along the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi River. This
would not just be a feat of exploration, but it would help end commercial
rivalry. The Iroquois wanted to trade with the Dutch and English in New
York; French control of the Mississippi River and its tributaries would
keep the Iroquois in the French orbit. On August 7, 1679, La Salle and his
lieutenant, Henri de Tonty, sailed to Green Bay on the Griffon, a ship built
on the Niagara River. They established several forts and dealt firmly with
hostile Indians.
In 1682 La Salle started down the Illinois River to the Mississippi,
and then went all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. He named the
Mississippi River Valley “Louisiana” for his monarch, Louis XIV. For all
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this, his rewards were few: for some reason Frontenac cancelled his
contract. La Salle went to France and appealed his case to Louis XIV who
had the rights restored and helped him get four ships and 400 men to set
up a post at the mouth of the Mississippi River. La Salle’s new expedition
started in 1684. He faced many problems, among them sickness and
desertion, but his biggest error was in miscalculating the longitude of the
Mississippi River delta. He had descended the river, but he couldn’t find
its entrance into the gulf-a maze of swamps and bayous. La Salle overshot
the delta, lost three ships, and ended up at Matagorda Bay, Texas.
Still looking for the mouth of the Mississippi, La Salle had more
bad luck. His ship was wrecked, leaving only 36 survivors. When he tried
to head north by land to meet Tonty in Illinois, three of his men murdered
him. Eventually the Mississippi delta was accurately located, and in 1718
an outpost was founded there and named for Philip, duke of Orleans, the
regent for Louis XV. The first residents of New Orleans included French
convicts, German indentured servants, and African and Indian slaves.
Cotton, sugar, indigo, rice, lumber, and furs became important products
brought to the town, and New Orleans developed into a social center
during the 18th century, even creating a local aristocracy.
The French influence in the founding of St. Louis, Missouri,
should also be noted. It was established as a trading post on February 15,
1764, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, with the
Illinois River (leading to the Great Lakes region) just thirty miles to the
north. Technically, St. Louis was in Spanish territory, since France had
ceded Louisiana to Spain after the end of the French and Indian War in
1763. But few Spanish officials or settlers came to this remote outpost,
and French influence persisted there. The French also founded some other
outposts along the Mississippi River, most notably Kaskaskia in Illinois.
For all the success of its explorations and the dedication of its
explorers, France could have done better in its operation of the fur trade.
French bureaucrats clung to Quebec as its major center for exporting furs.
As a result of this policy, furs collected in the Louisiana country had to be
sent out through Quebec, not the much closer New Orleans, increasing
time, distance, and cost-and reducing profit. But by the time of the
founding of St. Louis, this no longer mattered, since France gave up its
North American colonies after the French and Indian War.
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French Colonies in South America and the Caribbean
France (along with Great Britain and the Netherlands) did succeed
in gaining a permanent foothold in South America. At around the same
time in the early 1600s, these three nations established colonies in
northeastern South America, creating the “three Guianas.” French Guiana
became a French colony in 1667, and it has been under French control ever
since. In 1946 French Guiana became a department of France, a raise in
status similar to a U.S. territory becoming a state.
During the French Revolution in the 1790s, the revolutionary
governments began sending political prisoners to French Guiana. In 1854
a formal prison system was set up there, with Devil’s Island being the
most notorious prison, earning lasting fame for its inmate death rate and
difficulty of escape. Some 70,000 people were sent to French Guiana’s
prisons between 1854 and 1945 when they were at last closed.
The most important French colony in Latin America was Saint
Domingue, in the western half of Hispanola. The eastern half, Santo
Domingo (present-day Dominican Republic) remained under Spanish
control. France gained control over the region gradually during the 17th
century, and Spain formally recognized the French colony in 1697. The
main economic activity was cultivation of sugar, and French planters
brought African slaves to work on the plantations. Coffee and spices were
also grown. By 1788 almost half a million African slaves lived in Saint
Domingue, as compared to some 80,000 French colonists. France made
more money from this colony’s sugar production than it did from the
Canadian fur trade.
With the news of the French Revolution and its slogan of “liberty,
equality, fraternity,” a slave revolt broke out that resulted in the creation of
an independent nation, Haiti, in 1804. Unfortunately, no one, least of all
the slaves, had been prepared for the challenges of self-government, and
for the next 200 years the nation’s history would be one of dictatorship,
misery, and brutality.
Other French-controlled islands in the Caribbean remain with
France to the present day and are departments in the French nation.
Martinique, colonized in 1655, and Guadalupe, also colonized in 1655,
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had plantation economies. Another island, St. Christopher, saw French
and English settlers arriving there in 1624 and starting sugar cane
plantations. The British took over St. Christopher at the end of the War of
the Spanish Successon, one of the four major wars fought between Great
Britain and France between 1689 and 1763.
What Might Have Been
By the 18th century a French writer noted about the fur trade, “The
extent of the benefits we have drawn from the New World are incredible.
Without this trade, France’s standard of living would not have risen as it
did during the previous two centuries.” The French had worked hard at
developing a positive relationship with the native peoples of the Americas
that contrasted dramatically with the attitudes and policies of England and
Spain. What France did not do, however, was create a true colony, either
in New France (Canada) or Louisiana (apart from the trading centers at
Quebec and New Orleans).
In the absence of French women coming to North America, it
wasn’t possible to replicate “Old” France in New France. What France did
have was a successful operation in the fur trade, based largely on
exchanging European products for furs at isolated outposts where Indians
brought the pelts. Of course, this policy of “friendly cooperation” meant
that the native peoples of North America, and Brazil to a lesser and very
brief extent, could continue with their customs, language, and culture
essentially intact. Even with their growing dependence on European
products and the dangers of disease, the spread of which no one
understood, the native peoples played the role of allies to the French, not
conquered peoples. When France lost out to Great Britain in 1763, the
“might-have-been” of Indian-white relationships in North America was
ended.
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For Further Reading
Armstrong, Joe. Champlain (1987).
Costain, Thomas B. The White and the Gold: The French Regime in
Canada (1954).
Eccles, W.J. The Canadian Frontier, 1534-1760 (1983).
Eccles, W.J. France in America (1972).
Edmunds, Walter D. The Musket and the Cross: the Struggle of France
and England for North America (1968).
Jaenen, Cornelius J. Friend and Foe: Aspects of French-Amerindian
Cultural Contact in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
(1976).
Morgan, Ted. Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the North American
Continent (1993).
Morison, Samuel E. Samuel de Champlain, Father of New France (1972).
Nute, Grace Lee. Caesars of the Wilderness (1943).
Trudel, Marcel. The Beginnings of New France, 1524-1663 (1973).
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CHAPTER 9:
ENGLAND IN THE AMERICAS
News of Spain’s interest in the Indies attracted little notice from
the other nations of Europe. France was interested in Mediterranean
politics; the king of England was far more concerned with solidifying his
hold on his crown. Henry VII had defeated Richard III at the Battle of
Bosworth in 1485, bringing an end to the Wars of the Roses. Richard III’s
ambitions are much better known through literature than history, as
Shakespeare made him one of the theatre’s classic villains. One of
Richard’s dark deeds was to order the murder of the two sons of the late
Edward IV, Richard’s oldest brother. Richard had already removed his
elder brother, the Duke of Clarence, from the scene. But the “little
princes” remained ahead of Richard in the royal line to the throne. So he
ordered them killed.
After Henry VII (of the “Red Rose” Lancaster side of the war)
defeated Yorkist Richard, stories surfaced that one or both of the little
princes had somehow escaped death. Ambitious kingmakers were
presenting teenage boys as the “real” king. These imposters had to be
dealt with, as well as diehard supporters of the Yorkist faction. Henry VII
therefore had little time to spend on Pope Alexander VI’s line of
demarcation or the Treaty of Tordesillas. However, he did send mariner
John Cabot across the northern Atlantic to see just what it was out there
that Columbus had found. Cabot sailed down along the Atlantic coast of
North America in 1497 and reported the area offered nothing to attract
England. Henry VII then ignored the Western Hemisphere while Spain
continued to send explorers, conquerors, and colonizers.
Following the death of Henry VII in 1509, his son, Henry VIII,
became king of England. Like his father, Henry VIII had other concerns
than any curiosity about the Americas. During his long reign (he died in
1547), he was involved with European power politics, broke with the
Catholic Church to found the Anglican Church of England, was married
six times (the split with the Church was due largely to its refusal to grant
him a divorce from Katherine of Aragon, a daughter of Ferdinand and
Isabella), and collected the wealth of the monasteries his agents closed
down.
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Henry VIII had three children by three of his wives. His successor,
Edward VI, was the youngest (males go first in the royal succession), but
he ruled only briefly, dying in 1553. His death brought Henry’s elder
daughter Mary to the throne. Mary had remained a devout Catholic and
attempted to restore the faith to England. Opponents were liable to be, and
many were, burned at the stake for heresy. Mary married Philip II of Spain
and for awhile thought she was pregnant; but this unhappy queen,
nicknamed “Bloody Mary” for her repressions, was not pregnant, and
Philip soon returned to Spain.
Mary’s death in 1558 put her younger sister Elizabeth I on the
throne. She had carefully stayed out of any controversy during her sister’s
reign, for Elizabeth was Protestant. The Protestant Reformation of the
16th century was a dangerous time to have prominent religious views, for
Protestants and Catholics had little tolerance for each other’s religious
beliefs. Mixing religion and politics could make for a dangerous brew.
The French religious civil strife of the 1570s and 1580s, and the Thirty
Years War that devastated Europe from 1618 to 1648, are historical
markers of this intolerance.
Unlike her Tudor predecessors, Queen Elizabeth recognized
England for what it truly was: an island nation, not attached to Europe.
At the start of her reign England had just lost its last claim to territory in
France, and Elizabeth let it go without a fight. She saw her nation’s future
as a country of trade and traders, and to that end supported the
development of a navy to protect her merchant ships. Elizabeth avoided
the many proposals of marriage to keep her continental rivals off balance,
and she played a careful diplomatic game with Spain that enabled her to
avoid a conflict with that nation until 1588. She was also a silent partner
in the voyages made by English seamen who were little more than pirates.
Elizabeth did not give financial backing to exploratory expeditions
or colonization attempts. These were mainly privately financed and could,
and often did, cost a person his entire fortune. But Elizabeth did have the
power to authorize expeditions. It was this royal permission that gave
investors the incentive to raise capital and recruit potential colonists.
During Elizabeth's reign there were several attempts to establish colonies
in the New World, all unsuccessful. She did far better in her endorsement
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of men such as John Hawkins and Francis Drake who preferred raiding
Spanish settlements to starting colonies.
Drake’s voyage of 1577-1580 proved one of the most important of
the 16th century, possibly even rivaling the voyage of Columbus that had
opened the Americas to Europe in the first place. He sailed across the
Atlantic, made the difficult passage through the Strait of Magellan in the
belief that South America might be connected to Antarctica, a view finally
made obsolete early in the 17th century when Dutch seamen rounded Cape
Horn. He then went up the Pacific coast of South and North America,
looting Spanish settlements along the way.
In June 1579 Drake spent three weeks at an undetermined location
on the Pacific coast that may have been just north of San Francisco Bay.
Scholars argue to this day as to his exact location. We do know from his
log that he repaired his ships, claimed the area for England as Nova Albion
(“New England” in Latin), and, before he left, set up a “plate of brasse”
affirming his claim. Rather than return the way he had come-sensing the
Spaniards would be waiting for him at the Strait of Magellan-he sailed
west, stopping at the Philippines for water and taking on a load of spices at
the Moluccas Islands. Then he continued west across the Indian Ocean,
rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and was back in England by September
1580.
Drake’s voyage had many consequences for England and the other
nations interested in the Western Hemisphere, not to mention the
Americas as well. Spaniards were baffled by his voyage since he had
slipped unnoticed through the Strait of Magellan. So he must have come
through the Northwest Passage, or found the Strait of Anian, or someplace
like that, and Spain wanted to know how he had done it. Because of
Drake’s voyage, England learned more about the world and increased its
interest in Far East trade. Philip II was understandably unhappy about
Drake’s actions, considering him nothing more than a pirate, and
demanded he be punished. Queen Elizabeth knighted him instead. In the
1580s tensions grew between England and Spain.
An earlier generation of historians called Drake, Hawkins, and
their ilk “Elizabethan sea dogs.” This nickname carries a sense of
romance and adventure, an image conveyed through old Errol Flynn films
such as The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood. Modern historians know
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better. England was pushing Spain to the edge of confrontation with its
aggressive actions. Before the confrontation erupted into warfare,
however, England did make some attempt to set up colonies along the
Atlantic seacoast of North America.
The Lost Colony of Roanoke
Of several English attempts to start a mainland colony, the “lost
colony” of Roanoke is perhaps the most famous. Sir Walter Raleigh, a
court favorite of Queen Elizabeth, invested a considerable part of his
fortune in the venture. It isn’t clear what he hoped to gain from a colony,
but many Englishmen believed until well into the 17th century that the
Atlantic coast of North America might yield a treasure of gold as Mexico
and Peru had done. In 1585, 108 men sailed to Roanoke Island off the
coast of South Carolina to establish a settlement. Two years later 117
more people, including seventeen women and nine children, came to
Roanoke.
The governor of the little colony, John White, was a talented artist
whose sketches of the settlement provide a visual look at Roanoke.
Governor White’s daughter was married to one of the colonists, and on
August 18, 1587, she gave birth to a baby girl whom they named Virginia
Dare. Ten days later, Governor White left Roanoke, returning to England.
White knew the colony had some serious problems that needed
Raleigh’s attention (and more money). The site selected for the settlement
was not the best, as the harbor was too shallow for larger ships. The
colonists had run short of supplies and needed more. There were problems
with the local Indians. Unfortunately for White and the colonists, England
had much greater concerns at the moment than one little colony. The
Spaniards were planning a major cross-channel invasion with a huge fleet,
the Armada, to conquer England. With the help of a major storm that
scattered the Spanish warships, and superior English seamanship, England
won the day. After 1588 Spain never again challenged England's
supremacy on the high seas. But it was 1590 before White and additional
colonists returned to Roanoke.
When they arrived they were shocked to find no one there. No
bodies could be found, nor was there any evidence of a conflict with the
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Indians. All they found was a cryptic carving on a post: the word
CROTOAN. No one could make any sense of the word, and no one has to
the present day. With no answer to the question of what happened to the
Roanoke colonists, any number of theories have been suggested. One of
the more logical ones argues that the colonists gave up waiting for a
supply ship that never arrived. Badly in need of food and supplies, they
went to the mainland. Some Indian tribes in the South, most notably the
Lumbee of southeastern North Carolina, have some English names and
words in their language. This may be an indication that the colonists
joined the Indians and over time lost their language and culture.
The tragedy of Roanoke, and other unsuccessful ventures such as
Gilbert’s illfated voyage, made English investors realize that no one
person could finance a colony. Raleigh had lost a fortune. The solution
they worked out to this problem was the creation of the joint stock
company, a forerunner of modern corporations. London investors acted as
a group, buying shares in a company/colony venture. If it failed, the loss
would not be too severe. Despite the lack of success in the first efforts, the
English were determined to establish effective colonies in North America,
a region the Spaniards had not explored. Drake’s “Nova Albion,” on the
other side of the continent, was rejected as too remote. The English tried
again on the Atlantic coast.
The Founding of Jamestown
Shortly before Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, a group of London
investors formed the Virginia Company, honoring her marital status. In
1607 the company sent three ships across the Atlantic. They sailed into
the Chesapeake Bay area and found a river they named for their new king,
James I. Innocent (or ignorant) as to North American geography, some of
these colonists believed the James River provided access to the Northwest
Passage. This was but one of many errors they made about North
America. No sooner were they off the ships than they were running into
the forest expecting to pick gold off the ground. No one wanted to build
any shelters or plant food crops. The men proceeded to starve in a land of
abundance. What was going on?
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The London investors had recruited their colonists from the
“gentlemen” class of society. These were people who did not work with
their hands; others did manual labor. A look at the roster of settlers reveals
an excess of gentlemen and a dearth of laborers. When the food supplies
ran out, the colonists ate their horses, then dogs, mice, and snakes. Then
disease killed off many of them. Some of the hungry survivors resorted to
cannibalism, and at least one colonist murdered his wife and salted her
flesh for food. The dreary episode became known as the “starving time.”
The colony was saved by an extraordinary man with an ordinary
name: John Smith. A veteran soldier of fortune, Smith brought order out
of chaos, decreeing that anyone who wanted to eat would have to work.
Although it was close, with most of the first settlers dying, the colony
managed to survive. They named their settlement Jamestown, founded in
1607 and still in existence today. Later versions of Jamestown’s survival
mixed fact and fiction to create the legend of Smith and Pocahontas.
Few colonists knew how to grow crops in the rich Virginia soil.
They had to learn the hard way to leach the soil before planting corn.
Tobacco worked the other way; it used up the soil so that later crop yields
were lower than earlier ones. This meant they had to move to another
location after awhile, since scientific farming was unknown to them.
Nevertheless, it was tobacco that made Virginia eventually prosperous. In
1616 the colony exported 2,300 pounds of it. Four years later, the export
was up to 60,000 pounds and increasing. Ironically, James I detested
tobacco.
By 1620 the population of the Virginia colony was up to 3,000
people. This rapid increase in population placed a great strain on the
region’s food resources.
Native peoples in the area were primarily
hunters and gatherers. They soon grew concerned over the shrinking
numbers of birds and animals as the Europeans blasted away with their
muskets. War broke out in 1622, and more than 350 colonists were killed,
plus an even larger number of Indians. By 1624 the Indians gave up.
They were already outnumbered and outgunned at this early point of
English colonial history.
The colony’s investors mismanaged and bickered about the colony
so much that in 1624 the Crown took over the colony. The governor
would be appointed by Parliament, and profits would go to the Crown.
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The colonists did set up a House of Burgesses, the first representative
assembly in English America, but it was far from democratic local
government. To vote or hold office a person had to be a white male
Anglican over age 21 who owned property. These restrictions effectively
eliminated most colonists from participating in their government.
In 1619 a Dutch ship anchored at Jamestown and unloaded a cargo
of people who had been brought against their will-Africans who had been
sold into slavery. The slave trade had been going on for more than a
century, but these were the first slaves to be brought to North America. At
first their status was uncertain, but by 1661 Virginia had enacted its first
law on slavery. It would not be the last.
Tobacco plantations required many laborers, and since slavery was
legal, purchasing slaves for plantation labor seemed cost-effective,
especially since labor was in short supply. Free wage laborers could find
better opportunities than on colonial plantations. In addition to slaves,
plantation owners and other employers of labor found an important source
in indentured servants. These were Englishmen (and some women) who
saw no future for themselves in England but were willing to sell their labor
for the price of transportation from England to North America or to one of
England’s Caribbean colonies. The period of indenture varied from as
little as three to up to fourteen years, depending on such factors as the
price of a ship ticket.
Tens of thousands of young, would-be colonists came to America
as indentured servants. However, the employers who paid for the ticket
often complained that the servant soon ran away, heading for some other
place where he could disappear into the population. Black Africans, of
course, stood out in a crowd. Slaveowners risked much less with them. In
short order the American colonies, as the Spanish and Portuguese had
done, took a race-based view of slavery that would have enormous longterm consequences.
The Pilgrim and Puritan Colonies
The Protestant Reformation spawned a wide variety of sects that
ranged from the Anglican Church and its similarity to the Catholic Church,
to the rejection by some sects of anything resembling idolatry. Protestants
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who wanted to “purify” the Anglican Church of “papist influences”
became known as Puritans. Beyond the Puritans were some Protestants
who wanted to break away completely from the Anglican Church. These
people were known as Separatists. They went so far as to leave England
entirely and move to Holland. After a few years this group realized it was
in danger of assimilation into Dutch society, so back they went to London.
Their moving around for religious purposes earned them the nickname
“Pilgrims,” and it is as Pilgrims they became best known.
Still hopeful of finding a haven where they could worship God as
they saw best, and without Anglican interference, the Pilgrims decided to
cross the Atlantic and create a new society, not so much a colony as a
religious utopia. They chartered a ship, the Mayflower, hired a few
soldiers for protection, and sailed in 1620. Before landing they agreed on
a set of rules, the Mayflower Compact, by which they would be governed.
Initially they suffered tremendous hardships, including disease and
starvation. Many died. Too few to confront the Indians, they made
friends with them, most notably Massasoit, a leader of the Wampanoag. A
successful harvest in the fall of 1621 prompted them to celebrate with a
feast of thanksgiving, and they invited the local Indians to take part.
The image of the Pilgrims in American history and folklore is
generally positive. Children in elementary schools dress up as Pilgrims
and Indians, the nation celebrates Thanksgiving as a national holiday, and
Mayflower moving vans and Plymouth automobiles strike a resonance in
public memory. The same positive sense cannot be said of the Puritans, a
cantankerous, bigoted group who drove King Charles I to distraction.
Unlike James I, who avoided disputes with other nations, his son Charles
rashly plunged England into several unwise wars without the money and
motivation to commit his forces totally. He also tried to rule without
Parliament, and unsettled economic conditions made him an unpopular
king.
Religion created additional pressures between Charles and his
people. As head of the Anglican Church, and supported by the
Archibishop of Canterbury, Charles did little to stop a climate of hostility
in England as the country rocked with religious factions, led by the
Puritans. They disputed Charles’s claim of a divine right to rule, argued
over questions about episcopal vs. congregational church structure, even
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which way to place the altar table in church. Puritans opposed Sunday
recreation and didn't like the revelry and paganism connected with
Christmas.
Although the Puritans were not persecuted, they did feel harassed,
and they finally decided conditions in England were intolerable for them.
They devised a clever solution to their problem. Puritans bought shares in
one of the companies chartered by the king, the Massachusetts Bay
Company, to set up a colony in North America. When they gained control
of the company, they organized a massive emigration, and they took the
charter with them. Charles unsuccessfully tried to void the charter.
Between 1629 and 1635 the Puritans embarked upon the “Great
Migration.” Some 21,000 men, women, and children made the journey,
effectively transplanting a complete society to their Massachusetts Bay
colony. They founded Boston in 1635 and Harvard, to train ministers, a
year later. None of this was done for religious freedom as we understand
it. They wanted the freedom to worship in their own way. Catholics,
Jews, Quakers, and members of other Protestant sects were not welcome.
For the rest of the 17th century the Puritans ran a theocratic colony in
which there was no separation of church and state.
Meanwhile, affairs in England degenerated into civil war and the
eventual execution of Charles I. Puritans in England, under the leadership
of Oliver Cromwell, established a Commonwealth with Cromwell as its
Lord Protector. The Puritans in Massachusetts remained isolated from
these events. They banished dissidents who disagreed with Puritan
doctrine, leading to the founding of Connecticut by Thomas Hooker and
Rhode Island by Roger Williams.
At their most extreme the
Massachusetts Puritans became embroiled in the Salem witchcraft trials in
1692. Journalist Henry L. Mencken made a famous definition of
Puritanism as “the fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” While
the statement is an exaggeration, it denotes a negative image of the
Puritans that persists to this day, as when a novel is “banned in Boston”
while becoming a best-seller everywhere else.
The Puritans had no use for the native peoples they encountered,
considering them creatures of Satan, occupants of a wilderness that had to
be conquered. They found the biblical story of Exodus comparable to their
own circumstances. Yet they believed strongly in education, set up school
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laws, and led the other colonies in literacy. The dedication to education
became a paradox for the Puritans. They wanted their children to be
literate so they could read the Bible; but being literate made it possible to
read other books. For all the pressure to conform in Massachusetts in the
17th century, it seems ironic that the colony would be a leader in dissent
and revolt against England in the 1760s.
Subsequent Colonies
English monarchs in the 17th century used the idea of colonization
to realize potential profits and to pay off debts. When the Calvert family,
Catholic by religion, proposed a colony in America as a haven for
Catholics, Charles I welcomed the opportunity to rid the country of
“papism.” Around 1635 he granted a charter for Maryland (named for his
wife), as a proprietary colony run by the Calverts.
New Hampshire began under modest circumstances when James I
created the Council for New England in 1620 to manage settlement in
America. A few proprietors started settlements in the area that was called
New Hampshire after 1629. Absorbed by Massachusetts for a time, New
Hampshire became a separate colony in 1660.
Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, England had no
monarch for eleven years. During this period, known as the Interregnum
(Latin for “between rulers”), Cromwell ran England, using the term Lord
Protector to define his authority, since he was a commoner. Under
Cromwell's blessing England grabbed Jamaica from the Spanish in 1655
and used it as a base to attack Spanish ships and ports. Jamaica became a
rich sugar colony and a major importer of slaves. Cromwell died in 1658,
and his son and others lacked the ability to continue the Commonwealth
government. The Royalist party gained control and invited Charles I’s
son, living in exile in Holland, to return under certain conditions. Charles
II acknowledged Parliament’s move and agreed to marry a Portuguese
princess to cement an alliance with Portugal. Part of the dowry included
land in India, marking the beginning of what eventually became the “jewel
in the crown” of the British Empire. Thus Charles II regained England for
the House of Stuart in 1660.
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The Restoration Colonies
No sooner had Charles II become king than England was embroiled
in a series of wars with Holland, fought largely on the high seas.
However, in 1662, the Duke of York’s fleet sailed into New Amsterdam
Harbor and captured the city. England took over the colony and renamed
it New York. The Dutch had been interested in the fur trade in the region
and had done a little taking over of their own, evicting Swedish traders
from the Delaware Valley in the 1650s. Now the English took Delaware
over from the Dutch in 1664 and made it another colony. A similar
victory occurred in New Jersey which began as two small colonies
contested by the Dutch, Swedes, and Indians. Charles II gave it to his
brother James, Duke of York, who in turn awarded it to two of his war
buddies as proprietors. New Jersey became a royal colony around 1702.
South Carolina and North Carolina (“Caroline” was the Latinate
form for Charles) began as proprietary colonies in the 1660s, named for
Charles II. Of the colonies on the Atlantic coast, South Carolina most
resembled a Caribbean plantation colony. It imported large numbers of
slaves to labor in the production of rice, indigo, and tobacco. North
Carolina, more like the other colonies, eventually attracted large numbers
of Scottish-Irish immigrants who were unhappy with British restricitons on
their religious and political views.
The largest and possibly most significant grant during the
Restoration era was Pennsylvania, a region originally occupied by the
Shawnee, Delaware, and other tribes. Henry Hudson, working for
Holland, visited Delaware Bay in 1609, followed by other explorers.
Indians, Swedes, and Dutch vied for control of the region, until England
successfully took it over in 1681. The Society of Friends, better known as
Quakers, were persecuted for their pacificism and belief in the equality of
man. William Penn, a prominent Quaker leader, urged a colonial haven
for his sect, and in 1682 the king, who owed the Penn family money,
settled his debt by awarding Penn a charter for the land that would be
called Pennsylvania-“Penn’s Forest.”
Quakers emigrated by the thousands from England, Germany, and
the Netherlands. Penn himself arrived in the colony in 1682, made a fair
treaty with the Indians, and returned to England. When James II became
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king after his brother’s death, Penn sided with him, a decision that went
against him as James was an unpopular king who was ousted in the
Glorious Revolution of 1688. Eleven years later Penn was back in the
colony, seemingly involved in one controversy after another-government
problems, slavery, and piracy. His descendants continued operating
Pennsylvania as a proprietary colony down to 1776.
The Penns were unusual among English colonists in their belief
that the Indians should be treated fairly. They paid the Indians for their
lands, and in the periodic warfare that erupted between England and
France, the Indian allies of the French left Pennsylvania alone. This of
course created jealousy and animosity among the other colonies, but then,
they weren’t treating the Indians with much fairness. Pennsylvania
Quakers also took an early stand against slavery and the slave trade.
The Last Mainland Colony: Georgia
The thirteenth colony established by England in North America
was Georgia, named for George II, in 1732. Several reasons motivated the
founding of Georgia. It would serve as a buffer zone between Spanish
Florida and English South Carolina. It was also supposed to solve a
persistent social problem in England. Men who could not pay their debts
were placed in debtors’ prisons until desperate relatives raised the money
to pay the debts.
English reformer James Oglethorpe believed debtors should have
an opportunity to begin afresh, and what better place than in a new colony
in North America? He obtained a charter from George II to set up the
colony, and all went more or less well for about nine years, though
ironically the expenses of the colony put Oglethorpe himself in debt.
Unfortunately, the colonists ignored Oglethorpe’s reformist ideas about no
liquor or gambling in Georgia, and of course these were the very problems
that had put them in debt in the first place. Georgia became pretty much
like the other colonies, bickering about taxes, hungry for land, hostile to
Indians, and importing slaves to work on its plantations.
England’s Caribbean and Latin American Colonies
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Europeans began arriving in northeastern South America in the late
1500s, seeing the possibilities there of sugar plantations. The Dutch and
French established outposts, and English claims comprised the third of the
area called the Guianas. Sir Walter Raleigh had earlier searched in this
area for El Dorado, one of those legends about a city of gold, and a
conflict with the Spaniards put him in trouble with James I. Raleigh had
promised on pain of death that he would avoid border claims in the
Guianas with Spain. When a dispute broke out in 1618 Raleigh proved
himself an honorable man, and he was executed. British Guiana went on
to become a lucrative plantation colony, with Great Britain not abolishing
slavery there until 1838. The colony won its independence in 1966 and is
now known as Guayane.
Jamaica’s becoming an English colony has already been noted.
The Bahamas, a complex of islands east of Florida, was originally claimed
for Spain but was ignored after Spaniards removed the Indians to Cuba
and Hispanola. The English showed up in the mid-1600s and started
small settlements. For half a century the Bahamas colonists fought off
Spaniards and pirates, and in 1717 it became a British colony. After the
American Revolution, many Loyalists left the new United States and
moved to the Bahamas where they started plantations and imported slaves
to work for them. The date 1838 is important as Great Britain abolished
slavery in all its colonial possessions that year. Slavery had been
abolished in England itself during the American Revolution.
Political Allegiance in the Thirteen Colonies
Obviously, Great Britain had more than thirteen colonies when
Florida (under British control 1763-1783), Jamaica, British Guiana, the
Bahamas, and some other small Caribbean islands are included. But it was
the thirteen mainland colonies that would agitate for independence and
form the United States. The people of the mainland colonies carried a dual
loyalty. The first was an abstract loyalty to the Crown, not to Parliament,
and the complaints about Indian policies, unfair taxes, granting of trading
licenses, and restrictions on land purchases were directed at Parliament.
The Declaration of Independence in 1776 made the break with England’s
monarch and didn’t even mention Parliament. Independence meant to
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chop at the top; anything less would have made the American Revolution a
rebellion that would have solved some problems but not others.
The second loyalty was to one’s particular colony. Whether a
person was a New Yorker, Vermontan, or Massachusetts man could mean
quite a lot in matters of colonial boundary lines and how accurately they
were surveyed. For example, a colonist living in New York might be
requested to pay property taxes to Vermont, and the argument was over the
boundary line to see who got the money. Colonial borders did not
necessarily match the modern lines of states. Colonists retained a fierce
loyalty to their colony and a reluctance to assist other colonies in times of
war. This provincialism persisted until the American Revolution when the
question of serving in a Continental Army required the thirteen colonies to
act as one.
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For Further Reading
Allen, David G. In English Ways (1981).
Bridenbaugh, Carl. Vexed and Troubled Englishmen, 1590-1642 (1968).
Jacobs, Wilbur R. Dispossessing the American Indian: Indians and
Whites on the Colonial Frontier (1972).
Jennings, Francis. The Invasion of America (1975).
Johnson, Richard R. Adjustment to Empire: The New England Colonies,
1675-1715 (1981).
Kupperman, Karen. Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony (1984).
Leach, Douglas E. Flintlock and Tomahawk (1958).
Leach, Douglas E. The Northern Colonial Frontier (1966).
McFarlane, Anthony. The British in the Americas, 1480-1815 (1994).
Lemay, J.A. Leo. The American Dream of Captain John Smith (1991).
Notestein, Wallace. The English People on the Eve of Colonization
(1954).
Sosin, Jack M. English America and the Restoration Monarchy of
Charles II (1980).
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CHAPTER 10:
CHURCH AND STATE IN THE AMERICAS
For Gold and God
From the beginning of the Spanish invasion of the Americas,
priests accompanied the conquistadors. Missionaries went along with
Columbus on his second voyage in 1493. Spain was a newly united,
Christian nation full of missionary zeal, anxious for what today would be
called an ethnic cleansing of the country’s Muslims and Jews. The Church
did not draw a racial definition of the infidels, however. A Jew or Muslim
who converted to Christianity would be welcomed into the Catholic faith,
though there might be distrust as to the sincerity of the conversion.
Two kinds of priests came to the Americas, secular and regular.
Secular priests worked in parishes, usually in cities and towns, and from
their ranks rose bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and, ultimately, the Pope.
They dealt directly with their Catholic congregations and served less for
their religious commitment than for the priesthood as a career. Regular
priests (the term comes from the Latin regula, or rule) by contrast carried a
very high level of commitment to the faith. They took vows of poverty
and were known also as mendicant priests for their lack of worldly
possessions. These priests joined monastic orders such as the Franciscans,
Dominicans, Carmelites, Augustinians, Mercedarians, and Jeronymites.
The most notable order, the Society of Jesus, was founded in 1540, after
the initial conquest period, but the Jesuits quickly became the most
important of the regular priests.
Unlike the monks of the Middle Ages who withdrew from the
violence of the feudal era into monasteries, the regular clergy became
leaders in the effort to convert the Indians to Christianity. Eusebio Kino
and Antonio Ruiz de Montoya (Jesuits), Bartolome de las Casas
(Dominican), and Junipero Serra (Franciscan) exemplified the efforts of
priests who went to the frontier, defended Indians against slave-hunters,
and lived lives of poverty and dedication.
During the conquest period the native peoples of the Valley of
Mexico proved malleable material for religious conversion. Relieved of
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the Aztec insistence on human sacrifice to appease the gods, they found
Christianity a kinder and gentler faith. It was also the faith that had
toppled Huitzilopochtli, Tecazlipoca, and all the other native gods from
their pantheon of idols. Interestingly, the Indians saw similar patterns
between Christianity and their old faith. Although polytheistic, they could
accept the view of one God above all others, especially one that had
defeated the others. The old faith had included a hierarchy of priests,
convents, feast and fast days, baptism by water, and even rites resembling
confession and penance. So a transfer to the religion of their conquerors
became a rather easy matter for Aztecs and Incas.
In Mexico religious conversion was greatly aided by the story of
Juan Diego, an Indian who reported to the local bishop in 1531 that he had
seen the Virgin Mary atop Mount Tepeyac. The bishop doubted the story,
especially as the Indian claimed she had brown skin. The bishop wanted
proof. Juan Diego went back to the mountain, where again he saw the
Virgin. It was the middle of winter, but the Virgin gave him a rose bushful
of blooming roses. He picked the roses and put them in his robe. When
he opened the robe before the bishop, the roses were gone. In their place
was the image of the brownskinned Virgin Mary, known to the Catholic
faith today as the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The story of this miracle spread rapidly and helped persuade Indian
converts that the Christian God was not foreign, for the color of the
Virgin’s skin was as their own. Finding conversion made much easier by
this story, the Church went along with it. Church officials also allowed
ritual dances before the altar. Where there was a lack of priests, the padres
emphasized fiestas, singing, and dancing-group activities that maximized
participation with minimum supervision. They set up cofradias, religious
brotherhoods that cared for the church during the absence of priests who
made up for the lack in numbers by making the rounds of villages in some
areas. Some pagan habits-idolatry and polygamy, for example-the priests
found harder to eliminate.
Dedicated padres left the duties of city church worship to secular
priests and went out to remote frontier regions. Often as not they faced
martyrdom from Indians uninterested in hearing about Christ. The padres
persisted, gradually winning them over with gifts, demonstrations of
European tools, planting European crops, and patient examples of
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brotherhood. Where successful, they built missions, building complexes
consisting of chapel, refrectory, dormitories, storehouses, and corrals.
Where there were enemies, strong walls fortified the missions. The
Spaniards employed missions as part of a three-pronged settlement of
frontier regions, along with presidios (forts) and pueblos (civil
settlements). Missions also served as political and military outposts
against the rivals of Spain, from Portuguese Brazil to English and French
intrusions on territory in North America claimed by Spain.
The Jesuits became masters of mission building. They set up
missions from Baja California to Paraguay, helped the Indians defend
themselves from slave-hunting bandeirantes, and even provided the
Indians with weapons. The orders sided with their converts, called
neophytes, against exploitation by encomenderos, officials, and other
Spaniards. Of course, the Indians had to obey the rules. Once an Indian
accepted baptism and became a neophyte, he was not permitted to leave
the mission, nor was he expected to continue his old life style and
customs. Priests kept the neophytes in dormitories, a practice with two
negative consequences: the Indian birth rate went down, and neophytes
became quite vulnerable to European diseases. Ignorant of the germ
theory and how diseases spread, the priests accepted the mortality rate as
God’s will and sought new converts to replace those who had died. After
all, European deaths from epidemics of plague and smallpox were of
recent memory in Europe.
The priests established many successful missions, but at a cost.
The Indians got no practice in self-government and no responsibility for
their economic life. When King Carlos III of Spain expelled the Jesuits
from all Spanish territories in 1767, the mission system fell apart. Indians
were powerless to protect themselves from rapacious colonists who
wanted productive mission lands. Except possibly for the Franciscans, the
monastic orders had little luck in continuing operation of the missions
given up by the Jesuits. The famous 21 missions of Alta California were
founded in the twilight of the Spanish colonial period. They represent one
last burst of evangelical energy. With the independence of the Spanish
American colonies from Spain, the missions spiraled into decline, done in
by national governments uninterested in perpetuating a system of what
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appeared to be permanent benevolent despotism practiced by priests on
Indians
The Inquisition in the Americas
Founded in the 15th century, the Inquisition, also known as the
Holy Office, was established by the Catholic Church to investigate crimes
against the faith. Heresy was considered a cardinal sin, an affront to God,
its practitioners subject to severe penalties. The Inquisition found its
greatest support in Spain where Ferdinand and Isabella declared a zero
tolerance policy on other faiths. In 1569 Philip II issued a royal edict
setting up the Inquisition in America. Inquisitors arrived in Lima in 1570,
and they became active in Mexico City the next year. Bishops and
viceroys welcomed it to counteract self-seeking and lustful priests and to
clean up laxity in maintaining standards. This the Inquisition soon did,
fining and sentencing priests who had dishonored their vows and offices.
But the Holy Office also came to America with a broader agenda.
For one thing, the Inquisition functioned as a police court. It
tracked down bigamists, robbers, seducers of youths, and various
undesirable people. This last category involved Jews going from Brazil
into Spanish America, taking advantage of Portuguese laxity; Protestants
coming from Dutch and English colonies; and heretics, skeptics, and
anyone who dallied with holy doctrine. In the 16th century, the time of the
Protestant Reformation, one of the main Protestant goals was to raise
literacy rates so that people could read the Bible in their own language. To
do so meant that translators had to take a Latin Bible and turn it into
English, French, Spanish, Italian, or whatever was the language in a
country or region. Translators had to be dedicated to their tasks, for any
errors could be attributed to blasphemy, a serious charge that might result
in the guilty party being burned alive at the stake. The Inquisition was
quite satisfied with keeping the Bible in Latin and had no use for
translators.
The Inquisition also acted as a censor of books, looking for
heretical writings, and plays that might be lewd or irreverent. This pursuit
of conformity was not exclusive to the Inquisition or Spain. The 16th and
17th centuries were times of severe religious intolerance. Henry VIII and
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his daughter Mary in England, the French effort to exterminate the
Huguenots, and in the next century, the Thirty Years War, showed how
thousands of people died in the name of religion.
The Inquisition made Jews living in the Indies a special target.
Culturally, the Jews were indistinguishable from their Christian neighbors.
They had lived on the Iberian Peninsula for centuries, spoke Spanish or
Portuguese, participated in the economic life of the region, and were loyal
to their monarchs in all respects but one: they rejected Catholicism in
favor of Judaism, or, as it was often called at the time, the “Law of
Moses.” When Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain in
1492, many did not leave. They were tied to Spain by birth, language, and
culture. Practicing their faith in secret, they became crypto-Jews. The
Spanish government wanted to keep immigration to the Indies a purely
Catholic affair and tried to prevent Jews from going there. Spanish Jews,
however, were just as interested in New World opportunities as Spanish
Catholics. Estimates of Jews who went to New Spain, Peru, and
elsewhere in the Americas are difficult to estimate, but the number may
have run into the thousands. Bribery helped officials to look the other
way.
The issue for the Inquisition was not the identification of a Jew as a
person but whether the person practiced the Jewish faith. This was
contrary to the laws of Spain, and those found guilty would be punished.
Periodically the Inquisition would hold an auto-da-fe, a grand trial at
which Jews, relapsed Catholics, and heretics would suffer a variety of
punishments. These varied from stiff fines to prison terms running from
several months to life, rowing in the Spanish galleys, wearing the
sanbenito (a penitent garment identifying the wearer as a sinner) from six
months to several years, or a combination of some of the punishments. At
the extreme was being burned alive at the stake, with a modicum of mercy
allowing strangulation by garrot if the victim kissed the cross. Refusal to
do so meant being burned alive.
Many Jews did not receive the most extreme punishment, but were
penalized according to the severity of the offense, the charge being
“Judaizing”-practicing the Jewish faith. The Inquisition had gradations for
the offense, the punishment depending upon the degree of observance of
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Jewish customs and rituals, or the alleged effort to subvert the Catholic
faith.
Jews fought Inquisition harassment as best they could, in subtle
ways such as spitting on images of Christ when alone, or putting crosses
under doormats. A Jewish shoemaker might put a cross into the sole of a
Christian’s shoe. Jewish awareness of their faith was often concealed
from relatives. Some Jews were very observant, whereas others knew only
that they rejected Christ in favor of the Law of Moses. They devised ways
to fool their Christian neighbors, pleading stomach aches on Jewish fast
days, or standing in their doorway with a toothpick in their mouth so as to
suggest having eaten on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.
Inquisition investigators knew all the Jewish holidays and were especially
vigilant at those times.
The period 1596-1648 marked the high point of Inquisition
activity. During that half-century it held a series of auto-da-fes in which
some prominent citizens were exposed as Judaizers and punished
accordingly. But Jews in the Indies survived the worst times of Inquisition
zeal, then prospered when the Holy Office was checked by worldly
politics. Years of relative safety alternated with periods of persecution.
With the 18th century came an expansion of knowledge, more efficient
travel between the Americas and Europe, and a massive increase in the
publication of books and periodicals. It became very difficult for the
Inquisition to check all incoming books, and they had to deal with bribery
and smuggling of such literature as well. Spain’s Bourbon kings were
more secular than their Habsburg predecessors and curbed the power of
the Inquisition.
Ironically, the decline of the Inquisition and the relaxation of
persecution and harassment hastened the end of the Jewish community in
the Indies. Freed from the threat of religious persecution and exposure,
many Jews assimilated, converted, or became agnostics. Isolation from
active Jewish communities cost them religious knowledge. Most presentday Jews in Mexico, for example, date their genealogy back mainly to the
19th century. Some of Mexico’s leading Catholic families have Jewish
ancestors on their family trees.
The Inquisition initially tested the commitment of Indian converts
to Catholicism. In its first years of operation in the Americas, it tortured
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and burned some Indians, but people in both Spain and the colonies
protested this action and argued the unfairness of judging Indians by
Spanish standards. The Inquisition backed off. After 1575 it left the
Indians to the authority of the bishops. Philip II said Indians were not to
be converted by force, but instead by “legitimate means.”
The Work of the Jesuits
As noted above, the Jesuits were the most successful, dedicated,
and tireless of the monastic orders. They were noted for their financial
integrity and high personal character. Their record is clean as to corrupt
priests. Antonio Ulloa, a Spanish official, observed in 1740, “One does
not see in them the lack of religion, the scandals and the loose behavior so
common in the others.” The Jesuits developed printing presses, studied
native languages, made grammar books, built schools, colleges, and
universities, and set up libraries. They obtained funds from donations of
wealthy and pious people, usually as a death bed bequest, and the
donations included land. Consistent with their times, Jesuits saw no
apparent contradiction between their defense of Indians from slave-hunters
and their own ownership of African slaves. Their industries included flour
mills, bakeries, textile factories, potteries, and production of drugs and
medicines; this was only a partial list.
By the 1760s the Jesuits were also successful bankers and traders
and had become the dominant economic power in Spanish America.
Naturally, this made less successful people jealous. Government officials
saw the Jesuits as threatening their own interests. Jesuit enemies included
a virtual roll call of Spanish bureaucracy, including viceroys, governors,
and corregidores. The list also had bishops, other religious orders, major
landowners, and slaveholders.
Secular opponents resented Jesuit
economic competition, since religious orders had tax exemptions.
Jesuit political views finally caused their downfall. They were
always dedicated to the power of the Pope in Rome rather than the
monarchs who ruled the lands where they were active. This view was
called ultramontanism (literally, “over the mountain”), and regalistssupporters of monarchs-resented their lack of nationalist patriotism. The
most important of the Spanish Bourbon monarchs in the 18th century,
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Carlos III (ruled 1759-1788), wanted no state within a state, and no
appeals going over his head to Rome. Informed in 1767 of an alleged
Jesuit plot against him (a political ploy used successfully by Queen
Elizabeth of England almost 200 years earlier), and noting the fat Jesuit
bank accounts and extensive landholdings, Carlos III isued an edict of
expulsion. From New Spain to Argentina, and from Spain itself, the
Jesuits had to pack up and get out on little notice.
With Jesuit missions and landholdings vacated, the way was open
for other monastic orders to take over their possessions. The northernmost
outposts went to the Franciscans, with the result that Father Junipero Serra
would be on the Sacred Expedition to Alta California in 1769, not a Jesuit
leader. Other orders, less efficient than the Franciscans, allowed the
Jesuit-founded missions to decline.
The Church at the End of the Colonial Period
In 1800 the Catholic Church in the Americas was prosperous
though down in influence. The chief cities and towns had numerous
churches and cathedrals, and everywhere there seemed to be monasteries
and convents. The religious orders had missions planted in frontier
regions.
The Catholic Church in the Americas had become
institutionalized, a stable force allied with authority and a Hispanic
culture.
Yet observers at the time viewed the work of the Church with
native peoples very critically. One report after another complained that
only the exterior features of religion were acquired. Indian Catholicism
included a great deal of syncretism-the blending of two or more faiths.
Somehow Indian gods had been transmuted into Catholic saints, the Virgin
of Guadalupe proclaimed a brown-skinned Mother of Christ, and what had
once been pagan festivals had become part of Catholic celebrations.
As an enterprise, the Church offered ambitious clerics career
opportunities. An archibishop could earn $100,000 a year (in modern
monetary values); by contrast, a dedicated frontier priest received between
$75 and $100 a year for his expenses. And the Church was rich.
Observed Mexican historian Lucas Alaman early in the 19th century, “The
total property of the secular and regular clergy of Mexico was not less than
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half of the total value of the real estate of the country.” Alaman also had
little use for what he asserted was the moral decline of the clergy.
Tax exemptions and donations from the faithful of money and
property had made the Catholic Church in the Americas a powerful
institution, but within its structure there was friction and resentment. Top
appointments went mainly to peninsular Spaniards, a practice that made
criollos envious, though some achieved the rank of bishop after the 1650s.
Even less satisfied were the mestizos and the few Indians who became
priests but had no chance for advancement at all. When the Wars of
Independence came, the Catholic Church was a Spanish institution in
America, serving the needs of people who thought of themselves as
Americans but resented the inability or unwillingness of a Church that
sided with the mother country.
Government in the Americas
Spain’s role over its American colonies combined an effort at
micromanaging every government detail with a frustration over colonial
resistance to being regulated. An extraordinary distance existed between
law and reality. Time and again the dictates of the Council of the Indies,
whether they were the Laws of Burgos, the requerimiento, the encomienda,
or some other policy, were ignored by the people those laws were intended
to govern. The state played a passive rather than active role regarding its
instructions, for after all it rarely provided the funding for the dangerous
and often disastrous expeditions into unknown lands. Spaniards came to
the Indies for private reasons and impulses, risking their own fortunes and
armed only with the authority the Crown gave them to take those risks.
The state was content to rake in its one-fifth of the profits.
To the average Spaniard in the New World, government was at
best a theoretical part of his life. Spaniards had more daily contact with
the social, commercial, and economic aspects of settlement. If the
settlements they created were in good working order, they could take
government for granted. Colonial officials adopted a realistic attitude
towards the legislation sent from Spain: Obedezco pero no cumplo-“I
obey but do not enforce.” A law sent from Seville could take several
months in transit before it arrived on the desk of a colonial official. After
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letting it sit for awhile, the official could easily find something vague or
contradictory in the instructions. Back it would go to Spain with a request
for clarification. There it would remain on a bureaucrat’s desk until a
response could be formulated, and after more delay the revised instructions
would cross the Atlantic again. Thus a delay or one or two years in
carrying out a law was not uncommon, and bureaucrats on both sides of
the ocean knew how to play the game.
Spain set up two agencies to deal with the administration of its
New World colonies. The Casa de Contratacion (Board of Trade),
organized in 1503, supervised the growing commerce between Spain and
the colonies. Located in the wealthy and powerful city of Seville, the
Board operated there until 1717, when it moved to the rival city of Cadiz.
The Board was charged with licensing ships, ordering their activities on
the high seas and abroad, collecting taxes, and caring for the royal share of
New World treasure. It had a training school for navigators, mapmakers,
and devisers of nautical instruments, and it housed an archive of charts,
maps, and ship logs. The Board also maintained a court that had
jurisdiction over all cases concerning American trade. A major force in
directing Spanish commercial policy, the Board of Trade was not
abolished until 1790, a run of almost 300 years.
The Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies provided the
political arm of Spanish colonial policy. It issued royal edicts and decrees
and tried to account for every detail of colonial life. Its goal was to hold
the Indies firmly under its control, assure profit to the Crown, protect
Indian charges, and safeguard the interests of the colonists. To achieve the
near impossibility of these goals, the Council maintained a large
bureaucracy. Enjoying high prestige, even in times of royal corruption,
and subject in authority only to the king, the Council of the Indies lasted
from 1524 to 1834-a period of 310 years.
Council bureaucrats knew of the colonial resistance to their edicts.
They also knew that colonists faced challenges in placing Indians under
Spanish law and offered advice to help them. One adviser suggested that
new colonial administrators “not to try and change the customs abruptly
and make new laws and ordinances, until they know the conditions and
customs of the natives of the country and of the Spaniards who dwell
there.” He suggested the official “must first accommodate oneself to the
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customs of those one wishes to govern and proceed agreeably to them
until, having won their confidence and good opinion, with the authority
thus secured one may undertake to change the customs.”
Council officials seldom bothered to take such advice themselves.
The pace of legislation never slackened during the colonial period. By
1635 more than 400,000 edicts were in force, a number so great it was
obvious to all that no one could keep track of them. Not only did the
Council of the Indies initiate legislation, so did viceroys, provincial
governors, and cabildos (town councils). The laws very often conflicted
with each other’s jurisdictions and within the jurisdictions themselves. No
distinction was made between major laws and minor ones. No reference
book existed for easy use. The laws came in one steady stream of
ordinances, voluminous and over-specific, recorded (if at all) in the order
received. Clerks had no way to determine if a law passed ten years earlier
was still in effect. A new law could contradict an old one without
repealing it.
Under the circumstances, judges in the Indies had to decide each
case on its merits, applying general principles of common sense in order to
make the system work. In regulating activities, the authorities could go
from one extreme to the other. For example, judges could see that laws
providing punishments for smuggling might be so severe they would have
to abandon an unrealistic policy, only to return to it when smuggling got
totally out of hand.
Out of this bureaucratic morass of obsolete and contradictory laws
came a heroic reform effort. In 1681 the Council published the
Compilation of the Laws of the Indies, a compendium that reduced the
number of laws to 6,400. Unfortunately, new laws soon increased in
number, creating the problem all over again.
The Role of the Viceroy
At the top of the colonial governmental structure in the Americas
stood the viceroy, representing the prestige and power of the king. A
viceroy usually received a luxurious welcome with parades of minor
officials and churchmen, feasting, and lots of pageantry. A viceroy had
private guards, numerous servants, a palace, high salary, and a generous
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expense account to prevent corruption. His term of office was three years,
though there were many exceptions to term limits. The viceroy could not
make friends with his subjects, nor could he find a bride in his own
territory, lest he become susceptible to her family’s influence. Viceroys
could not be involved in private business.
These restrictions aside, the viceroy enjoyed great power. He
could appoint people to civil and ecclesiastical (church) posts. A sharp
viceroy could outflank priests and judges who opposed his decisions, and
he could delay enforcing royal commands or even disregard them. He
served as president of the audiencia (administrative governing committee)
in the area. However, audiencia judges could report directly to the king
about the viceroy’s conduct, and many of his appointees could appeal to
the king if the viceroy rejected their proposals. A visitador (inspector
general) could show up at any time to inspect financial records and hold
hearings. At the end of his term he was subjected to a residencia, a
judicial review that exposed his entire record to public view and presented
an opportunity for his political enemies to take revenge against him.
Cynics noted that viceroys had to make three fortunes while in
office. The first went to pay for his appointment, the second to support
him during his term, and a third to bribe the residencia judges to look the
other way from his wrongdoings. Nevertheless, Spain’s monarchs
considered the viceroy system a success as those who took the position
proved generally hardworking, competent, and obedient. The system
lasted for 300 years.
During the colonial period Spain set up four viceroyalties in the
Americas-five if Brazil is to be counted during the dual monarchy of 15801640. New Spain, established in 1535, encompassed a vast area that took
in all of the present-day United States west of the Mississippi River, plus
Florida and a disputed area that is now the states of Alabama, Mississippi,
and Louisiana (the dispute was with the French). Mexico, Central
America (excluding Panama), and the islands of Cuba and Santo Domingo
were also a part of New Spain. Theoretically New Spain even stretched as
far north as Canada. The capital of this enormous region was at Mexico
City.
The second viceroyalty was Peru, with its capital at Lima,
established in 1542 and taking in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, part of
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Venezuela, and northern Chile, along with Panama (to use modern
national equivalents). Much of this territory was subtracted when the
Viceroyalty of New Granada was created in 1717 with its capital at
Bogota. The fourth viceroyalty, La Plata, was established late in the
colonial period, in 1776. It included part of Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay,
and the northern half of Argentina, with the capital at Buenos Aires.
It is interesting to note that the most successful viceroys served at
the beginning and end of the colonial period. Antonio de Mendoza (15351550) in New Spain and Francisco de Toledo (1569-1581) in Peru served
multiple terms and reduced the power of self-serving conquistadors. At
the other end of the colonial era, Antonio Maria Bucareli (1771-1774) and
Count Revillagigedo (1789-1794) in New Spain did their best to energize
a sagging colonial empire. In the two viceroyalties with the longest time
spans, 62 served in New Spain and 41 in Peru. But of a total of 170
viceroys in all the viceroyalties in the colonial period, only four were
American-born, testifying to the power of peninsular Spaniards in ruling
over the colonies. One of those four was Revillagigedo, recognized for his
efforts to modernize Mexico City and inaugurate reforms. Indicative of
the corruption in the Spanish court near the end of the colonial period,
Carlos IV replaced him with a favorite, and the erstwhile viceroy faced a
charge of dishonesty. Fortunately for Revillagigedo, the residencia
acquitted him.
Viceroyalties were divided into smaller administrative units, all
subordinate to the viceroy but relatively independent because of distance
and slow communication. These included provinces, presidencies, and
captaincies-general, run by governors and military officers. Below these
were corregidores and alcaldes mayores, officials at the municipal level.
Corregidors were initially assigned to protect Indian communities, collect
taxes, and preserve the peace. Unfortunately, as a group they committed
some of the worst excesses of the colonial era. They pocketed tax money,
sold Indian labor to contractors, cheated Indians by buying their products
cheaply and selling them as high-priced goods, and forced Indians to buy
unwanted items such as silk stockings and eyeglasses. Seeing an
opportunity for collusion with local caciques (Indian leaders), the
corregidors devised schemes that foretold the treatment of Native
Americans by Indian agents in the 19th-century United States. The alcalde
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mayores, who corresponded roughly with town mayors, weren’t much
better and often were worse.
Spanish colonial government represented overlapping jurisdictions
and responsibilities to a degree seldom seen in nations such as the United
States with its separation of powers into legislative, executive, and judicial
branches. The viceroy and governor positions were basically executive,
the audiencia a judicial committee, and colonial councils a mirror of
Crown or Council of the Indies. However, everyone, from the Council of
the Indies down to the local cabildo, initiated legislation, very often in
conflict with each other.
Still, with all its problems of corruption, favoritism, and
micromanagement, the Spanish government muddled through the colonial
period with a fair amount of success. The state gave sanction and
authority to Spanish conquests, even as it withheld money and men. A
man with a piece of paper saying he was governor of an area yet to be
conquered could obtain credit with merchants for supplies and equipment,
attract men for his expedition, and maintain discipline, assets a similar
adventurer without that piece of paper could not provide. The state also
made high office a great social honor. Men of wealth and good position
coveted offices from viceroy to cabildo. Such offices enhanced their
prestige and influence in the community and offered opportunities for even
more wealth.
Above all, Spain’s monarchy and government, for all its problems,
maintained a stable society through the 18th century. There was some
comfort in knowing one’s status in life, whether artisan, gentry, nobility,
or peasant (though slaves would not agree with the philosophy inherent in
knowing one’s place and keeping it). People at all status levels stood in
relation to their titles. So the Spanish government supported relationships
such as that of master to servant, Spanish artisan to African or Indian
workers. Vagrants knew they would be unwelcome and subject to eviction
from communities that would not extend them any hospitality.
Yet within this society the distance between law and reality was
much more extreme than in Anglo-Saxon society. Everyone, however,
knew what was going on; they lived not in a society without law, but in a
society where customary law was stronger than any other kind. Since the
colonial government was weak in its enforcement of laws, its procedures
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were also weak. Everyone therefore assured his own rights by getting
everything down on paper and having it notarized to avoid litigation.
Lawsuits occurred anyway, but they were accepted as part of what it meant
to live in a Spanish society.
End of an Era
By the year 1700, after almost two centuries of conquest,
colonization, and transplanting of culture, Spanish rule over the colonies
had become rather stale. The Habsburg ryal line died out, and the new
royal house, the Spanish Bourbons, attempted to infuse new energy into
colonial government. The most active of the Spanish Bourbon rulers,
Carlos III, centralized authority and tried to modernize the creaking
bureaucratic machinery. He reduced restrictions on trade, made movement
of goods easier, and tried to revive the colonial and peninsular economy.
As noted above, in 1767 he expelled the Jesuits from all Spanish territory
because of their perceived threat to regal interests.
Carlos III’s most innovative reform for the Spanish colonies was
the intendencia, borrowed from the French intendant system. This
administrative position theoretically replaced governors, corregidors, and
alcaldes mayores (some 200 officials were immediately fired), and divided
provincial areas into twelve intendancias. The Spanish intendants were
charged to administer justice, oversee communities, promote business and
trade, and organize provincial militias.
Unfortunately for Spanish colonial administration, the reform came
too late and did too little. Carlos III died in 1788, and his son and heir,
Carlos IV, proved an ineffectual ruler. Government bureaucrats were not
happy with what they saw as a rival position and did little to support the
intendants. Instead of a housecleaning of a stultified bureaucracy, the
intendant system just added another layer to viceroys, audiencias, and
other government positions. By the 1790s it didn’t really matter, since the
colonial criollos were already long fed up with remote and stale
government. They were beginning to think of ways to better their own
situations.
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For Further Reading
Greenleaf, Richard E. The Mexican Inquisition in the Seventeenth Century
(1969).
Haring, Clarence H. The Spanish Empire in America (1947).
Kamen, Henry. The Spanish Inquisition (1965).
Liebman, Seymour. Faith, Flame, and the Inquisition: The Jews of New
Spain (1970).
Lynch, John. Spanish Colonial Administration, 1782-1810 (1958).
Parry, John H. The Spanish Theory of Empire in the Sixteenth Century
(1940).
Phelan, John L. The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century (1967).
Ricard, Robert. The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico (1966).
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CHAPTER 11:
ECONOMIC AND INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES
The Economy of Spanish America
Spain preceded England and France by a century in starting its
New World colonies. While the British and French colonies were barely
getting organized, Spanish institutions were already firmly planted. At
first glance it would seem that the economic system set up by Spain
remained essentially the same until the mid-18th century when the Spanish
Bourbon monarchs tried to revive stagnant policies. England and France,
starting later, were not as inflexible as Spain and were able to take
advantage of later economic and intellectual developments.
Two considerations should be noted regarding Spain’s economic
relations with its colonies. First, Spain was a selfish mother country.
Peninsular Spaniards assumed they had the right to make large profits
from New World activities. With the risks great, they expected their
profits to be worth the effort. Spain also felt such profits should be for
Spaniards alone and followed the closed market principles of
mercantilism. Second, Spain held the general view that the New World
was improved by the bringing over of European skills, technology, plants,
animals, and a desire to teach the native peoples the superior European
views in matters of religion and culture. The New World may have
offered valuable food products to Europe, especially maize and potatoes,
but Spain and the other European nations found little to adopt from native
peoples. Of all the native languages throughout the Western Hemisphere,
only one--Guarani--is spoken equally with Spanish in one nation-Paraguay.
Spain’s Use of New World Treasure
The question may fairly be asked, What did Spain do with all that
gold and silver they so desperately sought? In the long run, the wealth of
the Indies did Spain little good and caused serious economic headaches
throughout Europe. All gold and silver from the New World had to be
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registered, and the Crown skimmed off its royal quinto (20%) before the
treasure was shipped to the royal mints, where it was made into coinage.
Workers in the mints were heavily penalized if they were caught stealing.
Contrary to general impression, relatively little fell into the hands of
pirates or foreign nations at war with Spain.
For much of the colonial period Spain followed the practice of
mercantilism, a closed-market strategy by which colonies supplied raw
materials to the mother country in return for finished products. France
and England also practiced mercantilism. Colonial trade with other
nations was prohibited, though this was honored more in the breach than
the observance. In receiving New World treasure, Spain actually lacked
the ability to compete with other countries in providing the goods and
products that colonies needed or wanted. Part of Spain's problem lay in its
expulsion of Spanish Jews and Muslims at the end of the 15th century.
Many of these people had been merchants, and their economic connections
and abilities were sacrificed to the creation of a Christian state. As a
result, Spanish merchants had to buy merchandise for the colonies from
England, Austria, and other countries, and ship the products through
Seville, the city that controlled exports to the colonies. Seville’s control of
export trade hobbled other urban commercial development, though Cadiz
eventually won royal authority to deal with the colonies. So it seemed that
as fast as gold and silver bullion went into Spain, it left the country, and
high-priced goods went to the New World through middlemen at Seville.
This resulted in widespread smuggling in the colonies and price inflation
in Spain and Europe.
Hard currency left Spain for religious and political reasons as well.
The Habsburg monarchs used the treasure sent from the colonies to defend
the Catholic faith against Protestants and Muslims and to pursue an
aggressive foreign policy. Carlos I, as Carlos V the Holy Roman Emperor,
spent more time in northern Europe fighting Lutherans than he did as
Spain’s king. Also, the Habsburgs lived under the illusion that treasure
meant prosperity, a dangerous belief as anyone playing the game of
Monopoly has found out: cash disappears quickly when one lands on a
street with four hotels. The Spanish Court and upper classes lived
extravagantly, neglecting economic development. In the end, New World
treasure hurt Spain as money went for ostentatious buildings, palaces,
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monuments, and churches rather than supporting new industries and
commerce.
In 1934 economist Earl J. Hamilton published American Treasure
and the Price Revolution in Spain, a pioneering economic study of the
effect of colonial bullion on European prices. Working without a
computer, Hamilton made three million calculations on such products as
barley, wheat, rye, olive oil, wine, vinegar, spices, and other products, all
of which had been affected by a general rise in prices in Spain. Spanish
monarchs had no idea what was causing the inflation. They passed a
succession of laws that either caused more inflation or at times deflation
but which probably did more harm than good to the Spanish economy.
The laws certainly did not stop the price rise. Spaniards blamed the
inflation on a variety of causes, including bad weather, witchcraft, evil
foreigners, the Jews, greedy colonials--in short, they blamed everyone and
everything except the real cause, an oversupply of bullion that lowered the
price of gold and silver and correspondingly raised the prices of products.
Royal Sources of Income
The Spanish nobility derived its income from a variety of taxes and
other sources, most of which was provided by the colonies as well as the
nation’s people. The leading source of royal revenue was the quinto-20%
skimmed off the top of New World treasure. Naturally, the 20% figure did
not necessarily mean a percentage of the royal total, only a total that was
counted. Estimates vary widely as to how much encomenderos,
merchants, and anyone else who thought they could get away with it hid
what they could from the quinto’s collectors.
Other taxes included the almojarifazgo, a tariff on both the import
and export of products. Today an export tax can be seen as seriously
inhibiting trade with other nations, but the Crown saw it as an income
opportunity. The alcabala was a sales tax paid by everyone on top of the
price of a product, same as today. Every male under age 55 paid tribute as
a head tax for the privilege of being ruled. This was the only tax Indians
were required to pay. The Catholic Church tithed everyone (since
everyone was supposed to be Catholic, everyone paid). The Crown had
bishops collect the tithe and kept one-ninth of it.
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Other sources of income included the sale of offices, a practice that
invited corruption in government but which flourished anyway. Mesada
and media ante were kickbacks of anywhere from a month to half a year’s
salary to the official who secured the job for the applicant. The king also
enjoyed presents and gifts, soliciting or extorting them, depending on his
desire for the item. Anyone entering the city of Seville had to exchange
any bullion being carried for copper coins or even paper money. The rate
of exchange never favored the outsider, and when the person left the city,
conversion back into gold or silver was always against him. This legal
robbery was the price of doing business in Spain’s outlet to the colonies.
The king also collected taxes from the sale of imported African
slaves, gunpowder, mercury, legal paper, tobacco, salt, playing cards, and
other commodities. Usually the Crown knew that tax collectors would
never bring in the estimated amount of money, so he sold the privilege of
collecting a royal monopoly to the highest bidder. This guaranteed a sum
to the king, though the bidder had to calculate the price of the bid against
the anticipated amount of revenue that would or could be collected. Bid
too high, and collect too low, and the bidder lost money. The practice was
called “farming,” and every European monarch used farming as a source
of income, leaving it to the “farmer” to take the risk.
Among these many taxes and ways to enrich the ruling class there
were some positive notes. Spain had no land tax and, other than tithe and
tribute, no income tax. The tax rates were lower in the colonies than in
Spain, but it was taxation without representation, and collected by royal
agents who were often corrupt, or professional tax farmers who had to
work aggressively to make their profit. It should also be noted that these
practices were not exclusive to Spain. Every European monarch used
some or all of these techniques to create royal revenue.
The Colonial Economy
Two economies existed side by side in the Latin American
colonies. One was the subsistence agriculture of the Indians, to supply
food for themselves and for their tribute payments. The other one, Spanish
commercial agriculture, grew products for home use, sale in local markets,
and export to Europe. Various regions had different agricultural
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experiences, but some general observations can be made. Grassy plains
regions, for example, developed cattle and sheep industries. Caribbean
areas and tropical coastlands, especially Brazil, were centers of plantation
agriculture.
With the drastic decline in the Indian population in the first century
after conquest, vast areas of fertile and now unused lands became available
for agriculture. Over time the cash value of New World agricultural
products actually exceeded the mineral wealth shipped from the mines,
except for Mexico. Even in Mexico the total agricultural value of the
region’s production was higher in value than the silver ingots sent to
Spain. By the 17th century sugar, tobacco, cacao, and indigo plantations
were exporting their products, and cattle, swine, horses, and poultry were
in full operation for home use.
Spain’s Old World products found a new home in the Americas.
Farms produced wheat, olive oil, and grapes. Spanish agriculturalists
attempted some interesting experiments. Sericulture, the cultivation of
silkworms for silk, was initially successful until cheaper Chinese silk came
east across the Pacific from the Far East trade. Hemp and flax, important
in the production of rope, was exported until Spain’s cordage and linen
industries complained of the competition. In the interests of mercantilism,
planting of hemp was discouraged after 1600. Tobacco and cacao became
important export crops. Sugar, processed into molasses that in turn was
made into rum, became an integral part of the Triangular Trade between
the Americas, Europe, and Africa. These three products dramatically
altered dietary and medicinal practices in Europe. Consumption of sugar
rose dramatically throughout the colonial period. Sweetened chocolate
became a preferred beverage among the upper classes, and sugar itself
promoted the making of new kinds of foods.
Stock raising dated to the first voyages of Columbus and the
bringing of cattle to Cuba and Hispanola. The livestock industry became
one of the great successes of the Americas. Seeing the industry thrive, the
Council of the Indies laid out rules for its operation, based on experiences
in Spain. Laws specified the size of ranches in relation to the numbers of
cattle. The Council also attempted, without much success, to limit the size
of the ranches. Stock raisers continued the Mesta, a guild dating to the
13th century, for the sheep industry. It regulated brands, resolved quarrels
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over landownership, provided a court to settle disputes about cattle, and
lobbied for stockmen’s interests. Stockmen also raised mules and horses
for transport of goods. Horses multiplied throughout plains areas, as did
cattle, since those regions lacked predators. Wild horses were supposed to
be royal property, but any effort to enforce this policy was unworkable.
After 1596 horses went to anyone who could catch them. Peru, Venezuela,
and Colombia became leaders in mule production, as those sturdy animals
replaced llamas as beasts of burden in the Andes.
Questions of land tenure required the Crown to establish rules.
Conquered lands belonged to the Crown, not the conquistadors. The
Crown held the right to grant land to deserving people, but it did so on the
other side of a large ocean. Granted lands as often as not were not
surveyed and had unclear boundaries. Such uncertainty invited many
abuses and lawsuits. Ambitious men could use the laws and political
connections to their advantage, and within two generations following the
conquest the pattern was set for the formation of haciendas, as the great
landed estates were called in New Spain, and latifundios, as they were
known in South America. Indians wanting to escape the burden of
encomienda and repartimiento service found a refuge of sorts as peons on
the haciendas, where for most of the colonial period they were exempt
from encomienda service.
Ambitious owners aggrandized their property by consolidating
smaller grants into larger units. A large hacienda might contain several
estancias (small ranches). For the successful hacendado, bigger was
better: permanent structures, dammed streams for irrigation, and plenty of
workers. It took considerable capital to develop a hacienda, and they
continued to grow in size with each generation. This resulted in an
inevitable conflict between hacendados and native communities over
questions of land ownership. Initially grazing land was common land to
which Indians had rights and privileges. For instance, cattle could be
placed on cultivated land only after a harvest. Over centuries, however,
the Indians gradually lost their rights, and the hacendados took over Indian
land in a process that was greatly accelerated in the late 19th century in
Mexico. Native loss of land became one of the basic causes for the
Mexican Revolution of 1910.
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At first the Crown tried to protect Indian rights, but by the 17th
century the Spanish Habsburgs were desperate for money. One way to get
it was to sell absolute titles for a fee. This practice enabled many
landowners to legalize an imperfect land title. Their urge for land was not
necessarily for productive use. Successful hacendados saw extensive
landownership in medieval terms: the size of the estate measured the
prestige of its owner. Much of the hacienda land was left unimproved.
Conflict also developed between hacendados and encomenderos,
though sometimes the same person held both positions. An encomendero
who had not acquired land found his encomienda Indians going to the
haciendas where, though they might become permanently in debt, at least
had some guarantees of stability. Even mestizos went into debt peonage.
Without land, an Indian could not provide tribute to the encomendero, so it
made sense to become a peon and avoid the problem.
Much of this sort of dispute sounds very medieval, and in many
ways it was. But haciendas could and did grow to large sizes in less
settled areas. In northern Mexico, haciendas encompassed hundreds of
thousands of acres. Hacendados gained capital for expanding their estates
by marrying into merchant families. The rich got richer. Even religious
orders got into the act, receiving haciendas through bequests from owners
who sought a little insurance for getting into heaven. The Franciscans for
a long time resisted the temptation of land gifts, but most orders were not
so fastidious. At best the orders practiced scientific farming and were
fairer in dealing with peons than the hacendados; at worst they contributed
to the growth of land inequity.
All in all, a slowly moving trend towards large landed estates
continued throughout the colonial period. It could be seen in Mexico by
the 17th century; by the 18th century, elite control of millions of acres of
land was a stark fact of life. The issue of oligarchical control of land
continues to this day in nations such as Ecuador and Colombia. Even the
United States has not been exempt from aggrandizement of land by large
corporations.
The Spanish Fleets
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In the age of sail Spanish ships could only go where the wind took
them. Winds blowing from the east had taken Columbus across the
Atlantic to the Americas; the prevailing westerly winds blew him back.
These wind currents did not just fill the sails of Spanish galleons. They
also provided the motive power for the ships of other countries, and the
ships of no countries-pirates. Experienced seamen soon knew the routes
any ship would have to take to cross the Atlantic. This posed a problem
for the treasure ships in getting back to Spain. Their answer was the
convoy system.
For Spain the convoy system dated to 1526 when the Crown
instructed ships to sail in groups of two or three to lessen the possibility of
capture by French or English pirates. By the 1540s Spanish ships were
consolidated into mammoth fleets of between 40 to 50 vessels, escorted by
warships. Vessels became larger in size and better armed. Naval
squadrons patrolled the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Spain.
By the 1560s Spain had set up a system whereby two fleets went
annually to the Americas, unloading passengers and goods, taking on a
cargo of silver and other valuables, and returning in one huge convoy. The
months of May and June saw the flota, the first fleet, loaded in Seville
under the watchful eye of the Casa de Contratacion, sail down the
Guadalquivir River. Warships joined the fleet for the voyage across the
Atlantic. Little trouble was expected on the outward voyage. What pirate
would want to capture a cargo of farm tools, furniture, and trade goods?
The second fleet, the galleons, left Spain in late summer for the Indies.
Once in the Caribbean, the ships went to various destinations.
Vera Cruz was a main port. From there merchants took the goods to the
town of Jalapa, its higher altitude offering a healthier climate, and there
held a big trade fair. The goods went from the main town to smaller ones
or across to Mexico’s west coast ports for shipment to the Philippines.
On the return voyage the two fleets merged at Havana, Cuba,
where they waited for the hurricane season to end. Then they left in one
large convoy. Since the westerly winds dictated the direction the ships
would take, pirates knew where they could intercept the Spanish vessels.
The Spanish Main must have seemed like running a gauntlet. Most ships,
however, got through. Throughout the entire colonial period only one
entire silver fleet was sunk or captured, in 1628. Others suffered damages
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but managed to escape pirates. Inevitably, some ships came to grief in bad
weather or other hazards. Occasionally one of these wrecked ships is
located and yields its treasure to modern adventurers.
In 1565 Andres Urdaneta established a viable route from Spain’s
new Philippines colony (named for Philip II) to the Pacific coast of New
Spain. Thus was begun the Manila Galleon trade route. Two galleons a
year left Acapulco for the Philippines, loaded with silver and gold coins
and trade merchandise. After a layover at Guam (another new Spanish
colony) to take on fresh water and provisions, the galleons proceeded to
the town of Manila, where they traded their products for Chinese goods
such as jade and silk. The return trip to Acapulco took four months.
Merchants in Seville resented this Pacific competition and managed to
keep the number of ships to two a year, with none allowed to go from
Lima to Manila. The Pacific trade continued anyway, both legal and
illicit.
Spanish ships sailing for the Americas took more than trade items
and supplies. About 1,000 people a year went along as passengers,
according to Casa de Contratacion records, though many unregistered
people probably went to the Indies as well. Passengers were a widely
varied lot: a ship might take wife deserters, unattached women, former
convicts, debtors, officials, merchants, farmers, servants, clergymen,
artisans-all sharing crowded quarters for between two to four months.
They spent their time reading aloud (a great way for illiterates to learn
about things), singing, playing games, holding religious services. This
constant stream of immigrants probably did more to perpetuate Spanish
culture in the Americas than did all the officials and laws.
The Spanish economic system had many faults-the defects in
mercantilism, the inability to supply manufactured products to the
colonies, the inability to stop smuggling. However, it functioned for 250
years and more, at times doing well, other times poorly, but maintaining a
way of life for people in two hemispheres.
Intellectual Trends
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Spanish culture was passed on to the Indies during the colonial
period, but on arrival it absorbed enrichment from Indian and African
cultures, plus modifications due to isolation and environment. Still, Spain
provided the model for printers, writers, sculptors, and architects. As with
the English colonies and the new nations that emerged after the Wars of
Independence, Europe remained influential in arts, letters, and ideas, and
the best colonial efforts usually paled beside their European mentors.
Despite the restrictions of the Inquisition, examples of literature, learning,
and art did come to the Indies. At the same time, however, the colonies
suffered the worst defects of Spanish intellectual and creative throught
while giving little of their own because of the political and religious
restrictions.
Poets and writers in particular suffered from the widespread
influence of the work of Spanish poet Luis de Gongora (1561-1627), who
managed to change Spanish literary style from terseness and simplicity to
wordiness and obscurity. “Gongorism” turned grammar inside out, used a
half-Latin, half-Greek vocabulary, and made veiled allusions to all kinds
of obscure matters. New ideas had to be reduced to already accepted
forms. Poets under the influence of Gongorism larded their work with
allegory and symbolism, trying to emulate Gongora with their mental
gymnastics.
Spanish thought was also still under the influence of scholasticism,
a medieval concept arguing that the basic truths of the universe could be
found in Holy Scripture. Everything unexplained had to be explained by
finding it there. The inherent merits of an issue were less important than a
good memory for relevant texts. Aristotle, a pagan philosopher, became a
favorite source for neoscholastics in the 16th century, as the Catholic faith
argued against humanism. Neoscholasticism was a failed effort to
reconcile science with religion, but as with Gongorism, form was more
important than content. Schools awarded professorships to men who
memorized the works of St. Thomas Aquinas. They didn’t have to
understand it-just memorize it.
Poets and writers in Spanish America became especially infatuated
with neoscholasticism and Gongorism in the belief that creating along
these lines would place them in the ranks of Miguel Cervantes and Lope
de Vega (who were not influenced by Gongorism or neoscholasticism at
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all).
They staged poetic tournaments in which prizes went to
memorization, form over content, and preoccupation with supernatural
phenomena. Often the subject matter, meter, and length of the poem were
prescribed beforehand. Poets wrote in praise of notables on their
inauguration or retirement, or dealt with religious themes.
The slavishness towards Gongorism may have been due to the
criollos’ sense of inferiority and subservience to the succession of
peninsular officials sent out to rule over them. Denied authority above the
local level, criollos eventually became jealous, believing themselves just
as qualified for high offices as the peninsulars felt they weren’t. In this
atmosphere intellectuals had a tough time of it. An intellectual couldn’t
make a living just by being one as colonial society put its creativity into
social and economic developments. Intellectuals, to use a modern term,
had to have a “day job.” They worked as notaries and minor government
officials and tried to emulate the Renaissance ideal by writing novels,
works of history, philosophy, and essays. Spreading themselves out like
this, they ran the danger of superficiality as most writers could not fulfill
the ideal of being a Renaissance Man.
Both Latin America and North America in the colonial period
looked to Europe for new trends, and colonial literature became shallow
and unoriginal. Writers found their reading audience quite limited.
Education was a matter of privilege for the sons of more prosperous
Spaniards, criollos, and mestizos.
Daughters were not generally
considered educable. The mass of Indians remained illiterate.
Carlos Siguenza y Gongora (d. 1700) serves as an example of the
frustrations endured by an intellectual. A professor of mathematics at the
University of Mexico, Siguenza was a poet, critic, astronomer (note: not
an astrologer), historian, archaeologist, and philosopher. He recorded
eclipses and wrote histories of the Indians of Mexico. Unfortunately, little
is known of his work for the simple reason that he couldn’t afford to have
his manuscripts printed, and few patrons in New Spain would sponsor
him. He was aware of the separation of religion and science, yet insisted
he was a devout Catholic. When the comet of 1680 flashed across the sky,
Siguenza argued with Church authorities about its significance. “Comets,
contrary to belief,” he said, “have nothing to do with the wrath of
Providence.”
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Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695) was somewhat luckier
than Siguenza in that much of her writing has survived to be read and
enjoyed by a modern generation. A precocious child, she could read Latin
at age five. At age fifteen she tried to enter the University of Mexico but
was told that no women were allowed. Anticipating the motion picture
Yentl by 300 years, she offered to wear men’s clothing to school, but the
authorities still turned her down.
At age sixteen, possibly following an unhappy love affair, Juana
became a nun. She read, played music, wrote some plays, and composed
many poems. Her interest in mathematics led to a friendship with
Siguenza. The professor observed, “There is no pen that can rise to the
eminence which hers overtops.” Juana broke from Gongorism, used
words to express rather than conceal ideas, and acquired a considerable
reputation for her writing. Her fame attracted the attention of her
ecclesiastical superiors who ordered her to put away her books and devote
herself to religion. Juana thought about it, sold the books, gave the
proceeds to charity, and retired to the convent. Her work, however, is still
published in modern magazines, and numerous studies of her life and
philosophy have been published.
The regular clergy believed strongly that educating Indians would
make them better appreciate Spanish culture. Franciscans supported this
view as early as 1523 when Fr. Pedro de Gante founded a school for
Indians at Texcoco and directed it for forty years. Between 500 and 1,000
Indian boys were annually enrolled, learning Spanish and receiving
training as artists and artisans. Other schools were organized for the sons
of Indian leaders, and some were set up for Indian girls to prepare them for
the role of homemaker. In 1547 Viceroy Mendoza founded the school of
San Juan de Letran, which the Franciscans operated for abandoned mestizo
children. It was supported by the sale of wild cattle and lasted for more
than 300 years.
Not everyone supported schools for Indians. Landholders and
some churchmen opposed the idea, and Dominicans, unlike the other
orders, saw schools as corruptors of the Indians. By the end of the 16th
century most experiments in popular education were abandoned.
Schooling then became limited to the sons of privileged families. Many
Spaniards believed in deliberately withholding education from Indians and
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blacks, and that teaching subject peoples produced subversive thoughts,
agnosticism and atheism, and social commotion. As a result, Spanish
America by the end of the colonial period was a largely illiterate region.
Still, for those of higher status, the mother country provided
opportunities for higher education. Spain founded ten major and fifteen
minor institutions of higher learning during the colonial period. They
were mainly modeled after the University of Salamanca in Spain, widely
regarded as one of the most important centers of learning in medieval
Europe. New Spain and Peru vied for the honor of being the first colony
to establish a university. The University of Mexico first offered courses in
1553, but the University of San Marcos in Lima claimed its charter was
the first to be signed. Meanwhile, the University of Santo Domingo
claimed the “oldest” title because of a papal bull that gave university rank
to the Dominican school in that city in 1538. Whether created by royal
charter or founded by the Church, universities in Spanish America were all
dominated by the clergy well into the 18th century. As such, they were
little more than training schools for priests-but so were Harvard and Yale
at that time.
In the category of fine arts, the chief colonial cities boasted
luxurious theatres, and the viceroys in Mexico City and Lima installed
private theatres in their palaces. Theatrical troupes presented plays by
Spanish masters and many forgotten American playwrights as well. The
most popular early dramas were religious allegories, with lots of pageantry
and color, conveying both the gospel and Spain’s greatness. The modern
use of fireworks at Indian festivals can be traces to those pageants that
often portrayed fights between Christians and Moors-an odd tradition,
since this was in the Spanish heritage, not the Indian past. Spanish music,
however, became modified by Indian and African rhythms.
Spanish accomplishments in science have probably been
underrated since so much work is still not available in English. Philip II
was interested in science and sent careful instructions to Peru to have an
eclipse of the moon observed. He was curious about what a lunar eclipse
might look like when seen from the Western Hemisphere and below the
Equator. In 1570 the monarch sent a doctor to Mexico to investigate the
medicinal value of plants; much information was also compiled on native
foods.
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Other noteworthy accomplishments included University of Mexico
scientists calculating the longitude of Mexico City more accurately than
Europe had done. However, since the calculations were not published
outside Mexico, Old World maps remained inaccurate for another century,
including the embarrassing appearance of Alta California as an island well
into the 18th century. Although no nation had the technology necessary
for the task of digging a canal across the Isthmus of Panama or across
Nicaragua, at least twenty plans for that project were drafted during the
colonial period. A plan to drain what was left of Lake Texcoco was
drafted by a Spanish engineer as early as 1608.
Spanish scholarship early showed an interest in New World
anthropology and natural science. Bernardino de Sahagun, one of the first
Europeans seriously to examine Indian culture, wrote The General History
of the Things of New Spain, published in 1569. Juan de Acosta’s Natural
and Moral History of the Indies appeared in 1590. Fr. Bartolome de las
Casas wrote many books condemning Spain’s Indian policies, including
his Brief History of the Indies in the 1570s. Alonzo de Sandoval’s
denouncement of the African slave trade, On Slavery, appeared in 1627.
These are but representative examples of the intellectual efforts of scholars
to comprehend the complexities of the New World.
Perhaps the most striking feature of intellectual and cultural life in
the Americas was that it functioned at one extreme for a small number of
people. To the great majority of Indians, criollos, and mestizos, education
was beyond their reach, mainly for economic and often for racial reasons.
For the colonies, daily life meant earning enough to have food, shelter, and
clothing. They had no time for poetry debates or painting.
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For Further Reading
Bolton, Herbert E. The Rim of Christendom (1936).
Kirk, Pamela. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: Religion, Art, and Feminism
(1998).
Leonard, Irving. Baroque Times in Old Mexico (1959).
Merriam, Stephanie, ed. Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Ines de la
Cruz (1991).
Parry, John H. The Spanish Seaborne Empire (1966).
Picon-Salas, Mariano. A Cultural History of Spanish America (1962).
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CHAPTER 12:
INTERNATIONAL RIVALRIES
The first European nation to colonize the New World, Spain had to
defend its territory against latecomers, most notably England, France, and
the Netherlands. In addition, the bandeirante expeditions extended
Portuguese claims for Brazil clear to the eastern foothills of the Andes.
All things considered, Spain’s defense of its lands was remarkably
successful. By the 18th century, after Spain had colonized and settled
areas for 200 years, its rivals controlled only a few islands in the
Caribbean Sea and a small, miserable part of the northeastern coast of
South America. Since Spain had no claim on Brazil, its main issue with
Portugal was to determine an acceptable boundary, which was done in
1750.
At first Spain’s rivals preyed upon the Spanish colonies, then tried
to open trade connections with them. When England and France started
their own colonies, they followed mercantilist policies as Spain had been
doing. The differences between the way Spain dealt with its Indian
population in the colonies and French and English attitudes are worth
noting. Spain tried to include the Indians in those plans, whether as a
conquered people owing tribute to their masters or as an exploitable labor
force. The English generally treated the Indians shabbily, as first contacts
degenerated from tentative friendships and mutual aid to adversary
relationships and outright hostility. France, more interested in the fur trade
and extracting wealth from its colonial possessions, treated Indians as
company employees.
By the 1550s Carlos I had grown tired of the seemingly endless
battles between Catholics and Lutherans. A coexistence of sorts was
agreed upon in the Treaty of Augsburg, and a change in leadership among
the nations of western Europe ushered in new policies. Philip II succeeded
to the Spanish throne in 1555; Elizabeth became Queen of England in
1559; and France plunged into a nightmare of shortlived monarchs after
the death of Henry II that same year. The scramble for territories in the
Americas, mainly fought between Spain and France initially, threatened to
bring war to those two countries. Accordingly, Spain and France drew up
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an agreement of amity in 1559. Both nations agreed that disputes over
colonial issues should not be a cause for war in Europe.
The “no peace beyond the line” policy, as it became known, had a
number of unintended consequences. England would go along with it as
long as it suited English interests to do so. For example, England’s seizure
of Spain’s Jamaica in 1655 did not bring the two nations to war. Spain
had neglected the island, which was populated by a few hundred Spanish
farmers at most. Under English rule Jamaica became the headquarters of
English war vessels in the Caribbean, the base of all English activities in
the region from where illicit commerce went to the Spanish colonies.
The agreement also ushered in the age of piracy. The “line” of the
policy referred to a line of latitude just north of the Caribbean Sea. Since
the winds blowing from the west were vital to ships sailing to Europe,
everyone in the area knew the route ships were taking. This invited
interception from English, French, and Dutch pirates who saw an
opportunity to seize Spanish treasure. The Spanish Main became the sea
lane for conflicts that lasted until the early 18th century. For better or
worse, it also inspired the “Pirates of the Caribbean” ride at Disneyland.
Using Jamaica and other English-held islands such as Barbados
and Tortuga, pirates plagued Caribbean commerce for more than a century.
Tortuga, a small island near Hispanola, became a center for pirates of all
nations. The English governor of Jamaica and the French governor of St.
Domingue (on the western part of Hispanola) looked the other way when
these predators prowled the seas. Francis Drake in the 1560s had
professed loyalty to England and the Protestant faith while raiding Spanish
settlements. His successors in the 17th century owed nothing to any
nation. Politics and religion mattered little when attacking any vulnerable
ship that might be carrying a valuable cargo. Novels and motion pictures
have romanticized the villainous activities of such men as Henry Morgan,
William Kidd, and Edward Thatch (better known as Blackbeard), but they
were gangsters pure and simple.
The career of Henry Morgan indicates the tolerance England had
for such miscreants. Having taken part in the seizure of Jamaica and
fought against the Dutch in the Second Anglo-Dutch War of 1665-1667,
Morgan knew his way around the Caribbean. In 1668 he led a fleet of
buccaneers to Porto Bello, Panama, and sacked the city (“Pirates of the
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Caribbean” may well be Disneyland’s view of this infamous raid). The
following year he attacked Spanish settlements on the coast of Venezuela.
His biggest success was the taking of Panama City in January 1671, in
which the city was looted and burned to the ground.
Morgan’s timing was off in the sacking of Panama City. Spain had
constantly complained about piratical depredations, and even England was
growing tired of the lawlessness of ostensibly English buccaneers. In 1670
the two nations signed the Treaty of Madrid. England agreed to act against
Caribbean pirates if Spain would acknowledge English sovereignty over
its islands in the West Indies. Morgan was arrested and sent to London in
April 1672. His luck held, however, for relations between Spain and
England deteriorated, and in 1674 Charles II knighted Morgan. Sir Henry
returned to Jamaica as its new deputy governor, and he lived out his life as
a prosperous planter-and sending the navy after his former pirate
colleagues.
Spain and France did not work out an agreement on the piracy
issue until 1697 when they signed the Treaty of Ryswick. France
promised to pursue and eliminate French pirates, in return for which Spain
recognized French control of St. Domingue. Piracy continued, however,
well into the 18th century, until government pressures forced the surviving
buccaneers into somewhat less dangerous but still profitable operations-for
example, smuggling and the slave trade.
Rival Colonies
We have seen in earlier chapters how the English, French, and
Dutch successfully planted colonies in North America. Their location,
however, was well north of the furthest Spanish claims to New World
territory. The French claim to New France, with Quebec as headquarters,
was based mainly on trade with the Indians. The fur business proved to be
profitable for the French monarchs, but they gave it little actual royal
support. Relatively few Frenchmen went to Canada, and even fewer
Frenchwomen. French fur traders created a mixed-blood society, the
metis, through marriages and liaisons with native women. The sugar
islands held by France proved to be enormous moneymakers, bringing in
profits far greater than the fur trade.
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English settlement in America did not pose a direct threat to
Spanish interests for 120 years. The Jamestown colony struggled for
survival until its members learned to adapt to the new environment. With
no gold or easy treasure, Virginia thrived when it turned to tobacco
production. The Pilgrims who arrived in 1620 in southern Massachusetts
were so numerically insignificant they posed no threat to local Indian
tribes. However, the Puritan migration, sending more than 20,000 people
to the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts, must have severely strained the
resources of the region. This transplanting of a complete English society
in so short a time rapidly depleted local game animals even as the men
chopped down trees and cleared the land for the planting of European
grains. Their view of the Indians as creatures of Satan precluded any
efforts at peaceful coexistence.
It seems ironic that few historians make the connection between
the first Thanksgiving celebration in 1621 and the outbreak of King
Philip’s War a half-century later. The Pilgrims had invited the
Wampanoag tribe to the feast. Its chief was Massasoit; his son, Metacom,
received the name “King Philip” when he became leader of the tribe. By
the 1670s relations between whites and Indians had grown so hostile that
King Philip went to war against the colonists. Colonists by this time
outnumbered Indians in New England 2-1. Native Americans suffered
over land cessions, adverse interpretation of treaties, and even from
disputes between colonies, as one colony would call on the local tribe for a
declaration of loyalty against another colony.
The warfare was much worse than it need have been, but the
colonists had not yet learned how to fight in the wilderness. Plymouth,
Massachusetts Bay, and Connecticut formed the New England
Confederacy, but the effort was known less for unity than for the
cantankerous quarrels of its leaders. Poor colonial diplomacy caused some
Indian tribes, such as the Narragansett, to side with the Wampanoag. The
colonists failed to pursue several opportunities to end the war quickly.
They almost inadvertently discovered the winning strategy when they
destroyed the crops and food supplies of the Indians. King Philip’s
resistance soon collapsed. More than 600 colonists and 3,000 Indians
were killed and 25 towns destroyed, making it one of the bloodiest wars
relative to its numbers in American frontier history.
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During the 17th century England successfully planted twelve of its
thirteen mainland colonies. Georgia, the thirteenth colony, was set up in
1732 as a buffer between South Carolina and Spanish Florida. By the 18th
century Great Britain had become an aggressive, colonizing nation,
whereas Spain was on the defensive. For the Spanish, Florida was a
remote and lonely outpost. Needless to say, the outlines of South
Carolina, Georgia, and Florida did not in any way resemble the borders
they have as states in the United States.
It is interesting to note several postscripts to history in the form of
English colonies that were attempted on Spanish territory. These colonies
were of short duration, less for Spanish resistance to their preservation
than for the failures inherent in their planning. Two in particular merit
notice. In 1631 the Seaflower, a Puritan ship headed for the new colony in
Massachusetts, somehow made a wrong left turn and ended up on an
island off the coast of Nicaragua. The colonists named it Providence
Island but proceeded to act in a most unpuritan manner. Rather than
follow the strict dictates of Puritan theocracy, these settlers found it easier
to give up farm work, buy slaves from Dutch smugglers, start sugar
plantations, and go on privateering expeditions, or piracy by another name.
Eventually the Spanish government tired of their antics and sent them
packing.
A more noteworthy failure occurred about 1690 when the
Edinburgh Company attempted to establish a colony at Darien in Panama,
a part of Spain’s New Granada territory. This was a large, well-financed
expedition that unfortunately for the colonists took little notice of the
challenges of creating a settlement in a tropical climate. Colonists were
recruited from the Scottish highlands. They soon found woolen kilts
unsuitable for the heat and humidity as their clothing rotted away. Liquor
made the men sick and unruly. The colony’s leaders looked to the local
Indians for a labor force, but the Indians had no interest either in
Calvinism or in working for the Scots. Indian indifference, Spanish
opposition, the hostile climate, and financial problems finally put the
Darien colony out of its misery.
The Darien fiasco echoed the attempt of Sir Francis Drake a
century earlier when he took 2,500 men to Panama in 1595 to set up a base
to attack Peru. Disease and bad luck ruined his effort, and the whole idea
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proved fatal for Drake, for he died there. After the 1690s England found it
more sensible to concentrate on its North American and Caribbean
colonies than to endorse efforts to trespass in the heart of Spanish
America.
The Colonial Wars
Honoring “no peace beyond the line,” a policy that continued until
1739 did not prevent Spain, France, and England from involving the
Western Hemisphere colonies in European quarrels. From the 1690s to
1763, a series of conflicts cost the colonies dearly in lives and property.
Their participation was expected as loyal subjects, but their efforts were
largely ignored at the peace conferences. In the English and Spanish
colonies, frustrations built up along with a growing sense that colonists
could do better for themselves than to serve as cannon fodder for Europe’s
wars.
The cast of characters involved in the conflicts included the best
and worst of Europe’s rulers. For the French, there was Louis XIV, ruler
of France from 1643 to his death in 1715. During his long reign French
explorers secured control of the lucrative fur trade in North America’s
huge Mississippi River Valley, creating the likelihood that the English
colonies huddled along the Atlantic seacoast would be blocked from
expansion into the interior of North America. In contrast to French
ambitions, the Spanish Habsburgs after Philip II were a succession of
mediocre kings. Philip III and Philip IV left the task of government to
court favorites. The last of the line, Carlos II, was remarkable mainly for
living much longer than anyone expected, dying at age 35. The end
product of too much royal intermarrying, Carlos II, noted historian
Benjamin Keen, “was a pathetic imbecile, totally incapable of ruling.”
In the 17th century the House of Stuart became the ruler of
England after the death of the childless Elizabeth I in 1603. James I
successfully avoided war and saw the successful establishment of the
Virginia colony. His son Charles I plunged England into such continental
quarrels as the disastrous Thirty Years War, argued with Parliament over
appropriations, and harassed the Puritans. While colonies were being set
up in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, two factions in
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England grew increasingly hostile. The Cavaliers (supporters of the king)
and the Roundheads (Puritan opponents so named for their short haircuts
in contradiction to the Cavaliers’ long hair) found no common ground. In
1642 England became embroiled in a civil war that resulted in the defeat
and execution of Charles I. Between 1649 and 1660, Lord Protector
Cromwell ruled England as a Commonwealth. When he died in 1658
there was no one capable of continuing his office. Overtures were made to
Charles I’s son, living in exile in Holland, to ascend the throne as Charles
II (not to be confused with Spain’s Carlos II-royal families have little
imagination when it comes to naming their children).
Charles II returned to England and was crowned king in the
Restoration of the monarchy. However, his marriage to Portuguese
Princess Catherine of Braganza quickly brought a war between England
and Portugal’s hated enemy, the Netherlands. Although England did seize
New Amsterdam in North America and change it to the English colony of
New York, the Anglo-Dutch War, fought largely on the high seas, did not
go well for England. Historians who claim that England secured control
of the sea after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 overlook the
ongoing rivalry between England and the Netherlands. Britannia did not
rule the waves until the Dutch conceded defeat after a series of wars.
Charles II was a popular monarch. His loveless marriage did not
prevent him from enjoying a series of mistresses and the production of a
number of illegitimate children. However, Catherine did not give him an
heir to the throne. There was another matter that troubled Englishmen.
Ostensibly the head of the Church of England, Charles privately accepted
the teachings of Catholicism. When he died in 1685, he made a deathbed
conversion to the Catholic faith. Since he had no legitimate heirs, his
brother James became James II. Unlike Charles, who had been tolerant in
religion and private in his beliefs, James was a practicing Catholic in a
nation that had been Protestant for 150 years. Concerns were raised that
he might try to turn the clock back. James in fact expressed tolerance
toward Protestant dissenters, but his political actions alarmed Whig
leaders who opposed absolutist rule.
There was another factor that influenced the opposition to James II.
His daughters Mary and Anne, raised as Protestants, would succeed him as
England’s monarch. In 1673, however, the 40-year-old James, widowered
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for the past two years, married Mary of Modena, a fifteen-year-old Italian
princess. In 1688 she gave birth to a son who automatically pushed
James’s daughters out of the immediate succession. One day there would
be a James III and a Catholic dynasty ruling England. Anti-Catholic
sentiment ran high in England, and before the year ended, the Glorious
Revolution took place. James II and his family fled to France and a refuge
with Louis XIV.
James’s daughter Mary had married the Dutch prince William of
Orange, her first cousin (making James II William’s father-in-law and
uncle at the same time, a typical example of royal inbreeding). William
and Mary were now invited to become joint rulers of England in a
constitutional monarchy. James wanted his throne back, and without
much persuasion Louix XIV agreed to support him.
James’s plight fit right into Louis XIV’s agenda for expansion in
Europe and the Americas. His army was the strongest one in Europe, and
his navy was larger than the combined English and Dutch fleets. Aiding
James regain his throne would give Louis XIV the opportunity to keep the
English colonies in North America constricted in size. In Europe, he
intended to gain territory in the Rhineland at the expense of Austra, whose
Emperor Leopold I had his own problems repelling a Turkish invasion.
Louis’s plans of aggression alarmed other European nations for France
would dominate Europe.
Louis XIV underestimated William III, whom the French king
thought would be too occupied securing his throne to interfere with
France’s annexation plans. But William’s army routed the Jacobites
(supporters of James) and their French allies at the Battle of the Boyne in
1690. William then joined with Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, and
several other kingdoms in a Grand Alliance against France. The conflict
ran from 1689 to 1697 and has various names, depending on which
countries were at war and where it was fought: the Nine Years’ War, the
War of the League of Augsburg, and King William’s War.
The English colonies called the affair King William’s War, and
they were directly affected by it. William III could spare few troops for
America; the colonists were on their own. French soldiers and their Indian
allies headed south from Quebec and attacked isolated settlements and
farms in New York and Massachusetts. General William Phips organized
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an enthusiastic but illtrained expedition that captured the strategically
located Port Royal on the Newfoundland peninsula but failed to take
Quebec. When the war ended, the colonists were disillusioned to learn
that the Treaty of Ryswick returned Port Royal to French control.
The war ended in 1697 with the main victory being the failure of
Louis XIV to accomplish his plans. However, the nations in the Grand
Alliance had their own goals, and the general peace that came left no one
satisfied. The Austrian Habsburgs still opposed the French Bourbons, and
the Protestant English distrusted the French. James II died in 1701, never
regaining his throne; the task was passed to his son, still a teenager.
The end of the war brought only a temporary respite to hostilities.
Every European monarch sensed that the conflict would be renewed when
Carlos II of Spain finally expired. Epileptic, feebleminded, and subject to
fits of insanity, Carlos was the last of the Spanish Habsburgs. In 1698
England, France, and the Dutch Republic signed a treaty agreeing that
Prince Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria would inherit the Spanish throne.
Unfortunately, the prince died a few months later. The nations tried again,
this time offering the crown to a son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I,
with the condition that certain Spanish territories would go to France.
This was unacceptable to Leopold and to Spanish nobles. Poor Carlos II
was persuaded to sign a will putting Philip of Anjou, Louis XIV’s
grandson, on the Spanish throne. When Carlos finally died on November
1, 1700, Louis XIV proclaimed his grandson as the new Spanish king, and
made the point by sending an army into the Spanish Netherlands.
England, the Dutch Republic, Austria, Portugal, Prussia, Hanover,
and some other German states declared war on France. Louis XIV found
allies with Bavaria and Savoy. Once again Europe plunged into a major
war. William III died in 1702 (his wife Mary had died in 1694), and
England had a new monarch, Mary’s sister Anne. This conflict, the War
of the Spanish Succession, dragged on for a dozen years. English
colonists called it Queen Anne’s War. Once again the French came down
from Canada to attack New England, but fighting also took place from the
back country of the Carolinas west to Louisiana. A French fleet attacked
Rio de Janeiro and threatened to destroy the town unless the Portuguese
paid a ransom, which was done. And again, the English colonists captured
Port Royal, this time keeping it.
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The War of the Spanish Succession exhausted its combatants.
Louis XIV tried to end the war in 1708 and even showed a willingness for
an Austrian Habsburg to become king of Spain. But England (Great
Britain after the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707) pushed too much,
insisting that Louis XIV had to use his army to take his grandson, Philip
V, out of Spain. The alliance against Louis collapsed in 1711, and serious
peace negotiations at last began with France, each nation seeking its own
best deal. The most important of the treaties that were signed, the Peace of
Utrecht, was signed in April 1714, settling matters between France and
England. Louis XIV recognized Anne as Queen of England and pledged
no further support for James III, known in history as the “Old Pretender.”
France gave up Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, claims for Hudson’s Bay,
and the island of St. Kitts in the Caribbean. Great Britain also took control
of the Rock of Gibraltar. Philip V remained as king of a Spain that no
longer held other Habsburg lands.
Immediately following the war the cast of characters dramatically
changed in Europe. Queen Anne died on August 1, 1714, surviving all of
her dozen children (most of whom had died in infancy), ending the House
of Stuart. A search of the royal genealogical charts for a suitable
Protestant successor produced George of Hanover, a great-grandson of
James I. George was already 55 years old and not about to take an ESL
class to learn English. The English people swallowed this Germanspeaking king as best they could. James III saw an opportunity to invade
England and recapture the throne for the Stuarts, but the attempt failed.
Like his father, James had to pass his claim to the next generation.
Louis XIV died on September 1, 1715, leaving a five-year-old
great-grandson as his heir. Three decades of relative peace followed,
during which time England started its Georgia colony (for George II, who
became king when his father died in 1727), France strengthened its
Mississippi Valley outposts, and both nations staked out islands
overlooked by Spain in the Caribbean as sugar colonies.
Spain had always been at the purchasing end of the slave trade, and
since the early 16th century the Crown had made asientos de negros
(“Negroes’ contracts”) granting monopolies to contractors who would
supply slaves for the Spanish colonies in the Americas. The contractor
paid a fee to the Crown and imported a specific number of slaves to the
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colonies. Individual Spaniards received contracts, as did other nations,
including Portugal, Great Britain, France, and Holland.
One of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht granted Great
Britain’s South Sea Company an asiento that allowed the importation of
4,800 slaves a year for thirty years along with one ship, called a
“permission-ship” to engage in general trade. The British interpreted the
agreement in an interesting way. They anchored the permission-ship
permanently at Porto Bello, Panama, and used it to offload tons of goods
and slaves from Jamaica. There were claims of huge profits from this
business, up to 100% from the smuggled goods alone, but some sources
suggested the operation was more trouble than it was worth. The South
Sea Company had to pay the Spanish Crown 34,000 pounds a year for the
first 4,000 slaves whether they were imported or not. Of course, the
Caribbean continued as a hotbed of smuggling and illicit commercial
activity.
In 1738 Captain Robert Jenkins addressed a committee of the
House of Commons and displayed a jar in which there lay a human ear.
Jenkins said it was his, lopped off in April 1731 by a Spanish captain
during a quarrel over who had the right to be where in the West Indies. In
keeping with the policy of “no peace beyond the line,” Parliament at first
rejected the idea of war with Spain. After all, the two nations were
engaged in profitable trade. Public outrage about Jenkins’s ear, however,
and other incidents between Spanish and British ships in the Caribbean,
pushed Great Britain into a reluctant war in October 1739. For the first
time in 180 years, a Western Hemisphere event started war in Europe.
Other events soon eclipsed the War of Jenkins’ Ear. In December
1740 Frederick II of Prussia sent an army into Silesia, a province of
Austria, shortly after the death of Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor.
Frederick saw an opportunity in the fact that the new ruler of Austria,
Maria Theresa, was young and female. The nations of Europe took sides
on the issue, France and Bavaria joining with Spain in the scramble for
Austrian territory. Great Britain supported Austria, renewing the FrenchBritish rivalry in what became known in Europe as the War of the Austrian
Succession and, in the English colonies, King George’s War.
In the course of the war James III’s son Charles, popularly known
as “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” led a French-supported invasion of Great
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Britain and almost succeeded in recovering the throne for the Stuarts.
Ultimately he failed, ending at last any serious Stuart effort to gain the
British Crown. The war continued literally until its participants ran out of
money and settled matters at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chappele in 1748. For
France and England, nothing was settled.
Unlike the previous wars, the final showdown between France and
England began in the Western Hemisphere. In 1754 Lord Dunsmore,
governor of Virginia, learned that a French party was allegedly trespassing
on English soil along the upper Ohio River, near the site of present-day
Pittsburgh. He sent a young and inexperienced George Washington to
deal with the intruders, and Washington’s force of militia and Indian allies
captured them. Unable to prevent the murder of one of the prisoners,
Washington compounded the problem by admitting in writing the English
were at fault. The murdered Frenchman turned out to have diplomatic
credentials; this gave France the excuse to settle matters with Britain once
and for all.
Known in the colonies as the French and Indian War and in Europe
as the Seven Years’ War, this conflict was truly a major world war. In
India the British soundly defeated the French and secured undisputed
control there. France and Great Britain rounded up the usual ambitious
allies and fought in Europe. The British sent a sizable army to North
America to support the colonials against the French and their Indian allies.
In 1760 Louis XV invited his cousin, Carlos III, who the previous year had
become king of Spain, to become an ally of France. Carlos accepted the
offer but soon had cause to regret it.
At first handicapped by incompetent officers and troops illprepared to fight in the forests of North America, the British succeeded in
turning events around, most significantly in capturing Quebec in 1759.
From then on France went on the defensive. Superior British financial and
economic resources wore down France, and with a string of British
victories in North America and the Caribbean, the French were ready to
make peace.
The Treaty of Paris, signed on February 10, 1763, had significant
and long-term effects on the Americas. France ceded Canada (New
France-western Canada remained largely unexplored) to Great Britain,
along with any claims to lands east of the Mississippi River. Great Britain
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had triumphed over Spanish and French island colonies in the West Indies.
To regain control of Cuba, Spain yielded Florida to Britain (twenty years
later Spain regained Florida for having helped the United States win its
independence). France then compensated Spain for the loss of Florida by
turning over the Louisiana territory--a dubious gift since its enormous size
went far beyond Spain’s colonial bureaucracy to administer; Spain could
also look across the Mississippi River and almost literally see the
aggressive British colonists.
The British public cared little for Canada but expressed
unhappiness over the decision of British diplomats to return Guadalupe,
Martinique, Marie-Galante, and Desirade to French control, and Cuba to
Spain. These were important sugar-producing islands that brought far
more profit than the Canadian fur trade. For its part the French ceded the
islands of Grenada, Saint Vincent, Dominica, and Tobago to Britain. The
British also returned control of Manila in the Philippines to Spain. In
Europe, the French pulled out of the lands of Britain’s allies Hanover,
Hesse, and Brunswick.
For the Americas the Treaty of Paris meant much more than
changes in real estate. The heart of North America would be dominated by
English culture and language, not French; the much larger population of
English farmers won out over French accomplishments in exploration and
formation of Indian alliances. British takeover of West Indies sugar
islands likewise altered their cultural development. Islands in close
proximity would differ in language, social relations, and politics. In
British North America, the ink on the Treaty of Paris was hardly dry
before colonists began to complain about Parliament’s efforts to pay for
the cost of running the new and improved British Empire by taxing its
colonies.
There is an interesting footnote to the exchanges of real estate in
the Americas. Stimulated by Russian fur trading expeditions in the North
Pacific and Alaska, and by rapidly increasing knowledge and technology
in sea and land exploration, Spain determined to make good its claim to
the Pacific coast of North America. In 1769 it sent the Sacred Expedition
north from Baja California, effectively beginning the settlement of Alta
California. But how far north did the Spanish claim go? In 1789 Spanish
warships seized four British trading vessels anchored at Nootka Sound, an
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inlet of Vancouver Island. The British government took up the cause of
the aggrieved merchants. Spain argued that its right to the entire
northwestern coast of North America dated to the papal grant of 1493.
British diplomats responded that sovereignty could be claimed only if the
land was actually occupied, and Spain had not done so.
Spain had the claim, but Great Britain had the military power,
backed up by diplomatic support from Prussia. The Nootka Sound
Convention, signed on October 28, 1790, effectively limited Spanish
sovereignty to the 42nd parallel-the northern border of the modern state of
California.
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For Further Reading
Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of
Empire in British North America, 1754-1766 (2000).
Carse, Robert. The Age of Piracy (1965).
Maltby, William C. The Black Legend in England (1971).
Means, Philip A. The Spanish Main: Focus of Envy (1935).
Parry, J.H., and Sherlock, P.H. A Short History of the West Indies (1956).
Peckham, Howard H. The Colonial Wars (1964).
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CHAPTER 13:
THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND THE AMERICAS
Anyone contemplating a trip through time may expect to have a
reasonable conversation with someone as far back as around the year 1700.
Beyond that, with few exceptions the time traveler could well be accused
of sorcery, witchcraft, heresy, or insanity merely by describing what the
average person today takes for granted in matters of technology, science,
religion, and psychology. It surprises people to realize how recently many
of our common assumptions have come about: the germ theory of disease,
government of the people, a heliocentric solar system, rapid
communication, tolerance of other faiths and cultures (humanity is still
working on that last one). Worldwide agreement on the clock starting
with Grenwich mean time and moving at one-hour intervals across 24 time
zones was first agreed upon only in the 1880s.
Modern historians have assigned arbitrary titles to eras in history,
usually at the distance and advantage of hindsight. Ancient history, the
Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the
Romantic Era, and “Modern Times” are familiar examples. Common
sense tells us that no one walked through the agora at Athens commenting
on life in “ancient” Greece, since the times they lived in were “modern”
times. Recorded history spans a period of about 6,000 years, of which
two-thirds is considered “B.C.”-Before Christ, a splitting of history not
made until the 17th century.
Obviously, people (and history) do not move overnight from one
era to another. Some eras begin dramatically, as when Martin Luther
began the Protestant Reformation when he nailed 95 accusations against
the Catholic Church to the Wittenburg church door in 1517. Others are
more gradual. Well into the Renaissance era, many people still thought in
medieval terms, conflating religion with science and topography. Unlike
other eras, writers of the Enlightenment period used the term. They were
convinced Europe was emerging from centuries of darkness and ignorance
to a new age enlightened by reason, science, and respect for humanity. For
them, the Age of the Enlightenment was a time when ideas about God,
reason, nature, and humanity combined to form the intellectual power that
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explained the universe and improved the condition of mankind.
Enlightenment thinkers worked for knowledge, freedom, and happiness.
Reason as an intellectual force began long before the 17th century.
Greek philosophers saw order in nature; Romans believed in natural law.
In the Middle Ages, reason placed second to spiritual revelation as
scholasticism became the dominant method of intellectual inquiry. By the
17th century, putting issues of natural law within the confines of a
religious framework was proving an inadequate method for dealing with
poltiical, scientific, social, and economic questions. When farmers
complained to Pope Gregory VII that the Julian Calendar’s inaccuracies
hurt their plans for planting and harvesting, the Pope sponsored a revision
of the calendar. Since the revision necessitated dropping eleven days to
make the solar year calculations accurate for the new calendar, Protestants
treated the idea as a popish plot. Great Britain somewhat irrationally held
out on adopting the Gregorian Calendar until 1752; Russia remained on
the Julian Calendar until the Soviet revolution in 1917.
Glimmers of light amid emotion, irrationality, and ignorance can
be detected in the 17th century. John Locke explored the idea that the
human mind at birth was a tabula rasa, a blank slate on which the
experiences of life would be written. No one was born either good or bad,
and no one at birth was marked with original sin. Another English thinker,
Thomas Hobbes, saw man as an amoral creation interested mainly in his
own survival.
Other writers questioned the arbitrariness of an
authoritarian state, formulating theories of societies founded upon natural
rights.
An understanding of science moved from the Catholic Churh’s
condemnation of Galileo’s theories about the universe to the grudging
acceptance of Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and gravity by the end of the
17th century. By the 18th century, Enlightenment thinking could be found
in a number of European countries, its contributors including Locke in
political theory, David Hume in economics, and Newton in science from
England; Immanuel Kant in philosophy from Germany; and Miguel de
Cervantes in literature from Spain. The “Father of Modern Philosophy,”
the 17th-century French thinker Rene Descartes summarized intellect in
the famous statement, “I think, therefore I am,” a belief that suffices for
philosophy for many people today.
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In the 18th century the center of Enlightenment thinking was in
France. In 1748 Charles Montesquieu wrote The Spirit of the Laws, a
monumental study of political institutions that directly influenced the
framers of the United States Constitution. Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote
The Social Contract in 1762, arguing that “humans were good and society
was bad.” Jean Francois Voltaire wrote Candide, a brilliant satire on
society and philosophy. But the most innovative contribution of the period
came from Denis Diderot.
In 1747 Diderot conceived of a project in which the state of
science, technology, and thought would be presented in a series of
volumes he called the Encyclopedie. He originally intended the books as a
compendium of information, but it soon became much more than that. He
enlisted a body of contributors, among them Rousseau, Montesquieu, and
Voltaire, and he also wrote many articles himself on philosophy, social
theory, and French industries, among other topics. Between 1751 and
1752 Diderot published 28 volumes, 17 text and eleven of plate
illustrations. Diderot also made the information accessible to anyone
through the simple system of organizing the articles alphabetically
regardless of topic. Overall, the Encyclopedie looked pretty much the way
present-day encyclopedias do. Diderot set a format that would endure for
250 years-right down to the World Wide Web and electronic information
retrieval.
The French government and Catholic Church authorities examined
the volumes and were alarmed at the ease with which possibly subversive
information could be disseminated. The old adage, “A little knowledge is
a dangerous thing,” applied less to the person acquiring that knowledge
than the threat the acquisition of knowledge presented to those in power.
Conservatives and reactionaries were appalled and demanded that the
work be censured. Some volumes were suppressed but were published
anyway, though at times the situation became politically hot for Diderot.
Voltaire offered to have the rest of the set published outside France, but
Diderot doggedly kept the work a French operation even though he had to
publish some volumes surreptitiously.
Ultimately the Encyclopedie became a statement for human
rationality and a warning against any political or religious authority that
sought to control individual intellect. Louis XV tried unsuccessfully to
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ban it for its criticism of his government; the Catholic Church denounced
its skepticism of organized religion. The encyclopedia idea, however,
caught on and soon spread to other nations. In Great Britain, for example,
the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s first edition appeared in three volumes
between 1768 and 1771; by the third edition, the compendium counted
eighteen volumes, published between 1788 and 1797 (and Britannica.com
continues the publication into the 21st century).
Not all monarchs were as stiffheaded as Louis XV. Joseph II of
Austria, Catherine the Great of Russia, Federick II of Prussia, and Carlos
III of Spain in one way or another fit into the category of “enlightened
despots,” an oxymoronic description of absolute rulers who encouraged
arts, sciences, economics, and other fields. They often drew a line between
royal and religious authority.
Enlightenment thought thus exercised great influence on the
science, philosophy, and political thinking of the late 17th and 18th
centuries. It was a time when printers considered it an acceptable risk to
publish controversial material, and improvements in printing presses
brought out not only books, but also magazines and newspapers.
Improved communications between nations made it possible for
publications to cross national boundaries and to be translated into other
languages. Controversial works even slipped past the radar of the
Inquisition, down considerably in its influence from previous centuries.
Enlightenment thinkers argued that knowledge was not innate but
came instead from experience and observation, guided by reason.
Education could alter humanity for the better. In contrast to the medieval
scholasticism that derived truth from authoritative sources such as the
Bible and Aristotle, the lumieres, as French Enlightenment writers styled
themselves, believed that if one observed nature, the truth would be
revealed without recourse to authority. As for religion, Enlightenment
thinkers did not reject it, but instead they opted for Deism-a belief in God
without the intricacies of theology. Forget the next life, they said; improve
this one. Since the Catholic Church suppressed the free exercise of reason,
the lumieres opposed the Church.
In the late 18th century the Enlightenment movement made a
fateful shift from reason to emotion. Rousseau argued that sentiment and
emotion, not just reason, influenced thought. His readers avoided his
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complex political theories and simplified his arguments. Down with the
superficial and artificial, up with simplicity and directness. If human
equality was the goal, then down with aristocracy. Many Enlightenment
writers, Montesquieu among them, belonged to the French aristocracy,
putting them in the difficult position of resisting the increasing impetus for
change. In the end the French Revolution’s excesses pulled down the
Enlightenment, but its legacy endured. A watershed in thinking created
the “modern” view of things we accept as ordinary today, including the
belief that progress is a necessity for humanity.
The Effect of the Enlightenment in Spain
Spain’s Habsburg rulers had frittered away an empire through
involvement in foreign wars and in mismanagement at home. The 18thcentury Bourbon heirs-Philip V and his sons Ferdinand VI and Carlos IIIsought to improve conditions both at home and for Spain’s colonial
empire. Under them, Spain recovered much of its lost luster. An
increasing population enjoyed prosperous times, reform efforts attempted
to modernize the colonial bureaucracy, and the government’s voice was
again heard in international politics.
One of the important developments in this period was the rise of
Jansenism, a movement favoring austerity in the Catholic Church and
opposition to the theological teachings of the Jesuits. Jansenists endorsed
a strong royal policy and opposed Jesuit ultramontanism, the support of
the Papacy over national monarchs. When Carlos III, a strong Jansenist,
expelled the Jesuits from all Spanish territories in 1767, changes occurred
in education, and the Inquisition lost influence. Carlos III attempted to
reform the Church in Spain and by his successes was able to assert the
power of the Crown. Somewhat contradictorily, Carlos III achieved a high
level of royal absolutism, but his enlightened views opened Spain to new
ideas. He appointed Jansenists to high posts, and after the 1750s the
Church lost independence and authority.
The Enlightenment was to enter Spain largely through the figure of
Benito Geronimo Feyjoo y Montenegro, a monk who encouraged studies
in science and pursued knowledge from new sources while somehow
keeping his Catholic faith. Although he died in 1759--the same year
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Carlos III became king-his work exercised a tremendous influence on
Spanish intellectual thought. He wrote many critical works condemning
Spain’s obscurantism and conservatism, arguing against Aristotle and
scholasticism and for rationalism and Cartesian philosophy.
From the 1750s on, the Spanish government took a strong interest
in scientific developments, established communication with scientists in
other countries, and attempted to improve the nation’s economic life.
Here Spain lagged behind other countries that were beginning to discard
mercantilism and accept laissez-faire trade in which the marketplace, not
the government, made the rules. Spanish scholars were getting familiar
with the work of Adam Smith in England, most notably his 1776 book The
Wealth of Nations, and political economy was shown to be a study worth
pursuing.
With the decline in Inquisition influence, Voltaire, Condillac,
Rousseau, Montesquieu, and other lumieres were read in French or in
Spanish translations. What the Inquisition could not stand, royal
government tolerated. During the 30-year reign of Carlos III “forbidden”
books found their way into Spain, controversial plays were performed, and
a Spanish version of the lumiere, the luce, wrote about scientific progress,
educational reform, economic prosperity, and social justice. Carlos III lent
his influence to the growth of the periodical press, though the royal
government watched over what was published, and the Inquisition could
still make threats. Inevitably, some intellectuals found Enlightenment
ideas unacceptable and wrote critiques against Rousseau and Voltaire.
Spain’s acceptance of the Enlightenment was modest at best.
Revolutionaries and heretics found no audience in Spain, and the
philosophical and political aspects of the Enlightenment were not of major
concern. Instead, Spanish reformers were attracted to the possibliities of
scientific and technological improvement, especially in their country’s
economy. With Carlos III’s blessing, more than sixty chapters of the
Amigos del Pais, the Economic Friends of the Nation, were established
throughout Spain between 1775 and 1800 to improve Spain’s economic
condition.
The chief promoter of the Amigos del Pais, Gaspar de Jovellanos,
addressed the serious shortcomings of Spain’s economy in Agrarian Law,
a book on the nation’s agricultural problems. Spain had a combination of
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huge ecclesiastical estates and a poor peasantry. The nation badly needed
land reform. Jovellanos condemned property restrictions such as entail
and mortmain as relics of the Middle Ages. His book made for dull
reading, but it was full of implications for revolutionizing farming and the
social arrangements that hobbled progress in agriculture. Since the book
attacked the Church, the Inquisition condemned it. Even the Crown
thought Jovellanos went too far in some of his criticisms, especially in
areas concerning property rights. But the book did provide a wake-up call
to address long neglected problems.
In 1789 the French Revolution began as a protest against an idle
aristocracy that had neglected the peasantry for too long. “Liberty,
euqality, fraternity” celebrated a fulfillment of some Enlightened ideas, but
reason became lost as the Revolution degenerated into violence and
excess. Enlightened conservatives became alarmed, then shocked when
heads started rolling, among them the tetes of Louis XVI and his wife,
Marie Antoinette. There had been no “radical” followers of the
Enlightenment in Spain. Those who supported new ideas had always been
outnumbered by opponents and mass apathy. The luces in Spain didn‘t
match up to the French lumieres, and what was going on in France scared
many people.
Carlos III died the year before the outbreak of Revolution in
France. His son, Carlos IV, was already in middle age, and he lacked his
father’s ambition, intellect, and activity. He seemed incapable of dealing
with the currents that swirled about him. The Spanish government tried to
censor news and keep Spain pure from French agitators, but radicals
nevertheless mailed propaganda to Spain in plain wrappers, and
information about what was happening on the other side of the Pyranees
Mountains filtered through. To add to Spanish alarm, French refugees
crossed the mountains into Spain and told of the atrocities going on and
the upheavals in France. After the beheading of Louis XVI, Spain became
actively hostile against France, joining other nations in a complex series of
wars that aroused some political opposition at home.
In those turbulent times Carlos IV tried his best to deal with events
beyond his comprehension. He dismissed his popular chief minister, the
Count of Aranda, and replaced him with Manuel de Godoy, who also
happened to be the lover of Queen Maria Luisa (an affair apparently
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known to everyone in Spain except Carlos IV). Godoy managed to end
Spain’s war with France in 1795. His romantic relationship aside, Godoy
was an important supporter of the Enlightenment, encouraging studies in
history, science, education, and economics. A brisk trade had developed
in Spain in “prohibited” books. Unfortunately, the body of progressives
who had originally brought the Enlightenment to Spain did not give much
support to the government. Price rose while money values fell, and
economic reform gave way to a new war, this time with Great Britain, in
1796.
Godoy withdrew from the ministry in 1798, and was replaced by
Jovellanos who renewed the old struggle against the ultramontanists. This
time, however, the ultramontanists succeeded in discrediting Jovellanos
and his successors. A new government tried to restore the old order with
the pliable Carlos IV. Spain, France, and Great Britain did manage to end
their military squabbles by 1802, but by then there was a new player on the
scene who would start the new century with political disruptions on a scale
that surprised even the most radical French revolutionaries: the player was
Napoleon Bonaparte.
Carlos IV would play his own minor scene before exiting from the
world stage in 1808. He allowed himself to be conned by Napoleon into
trading the Louisiana territory for some Bourbon holdings in Italy in the
Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1801. Carlos IV had intended to provide the
landholdings for greedy relatives, but the plan never happened. Napoleon
changed his mind about invading Saint Domingue and wound up selling
the Louisiana territory to the United States.
Latin America and the Enlightenment
By the mid-18th century young men from the Latin American and
English colonies had no great difficulty crossing the Atlantic. These men,
often in the role of students, visited Spain, England, France, and other
European countries. They brought back ideas with them, especially in the
areas of science, economics, medicine, and law. The popular press,
especially during the reign of Carlos III, easily evaded Inquisition
censorship, though it was still an annoyance. Spanish American criollos
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enjoyed the critical attitude of Enlightenment writings and the new ideas
those writings presented.
In addition to the Amigos del Pais chapters established in Spain,
fourteen chapters were founded in Spanish America between 1783 and
1819. These and other formally and informally organized associations
held public discussions, prize contests, and meetings, and they put out
publications of their own. Unlike the baroque era, these gatherings offered
no Gongorism but instead offered forums for dealing with political and
economic issues of vital concern to colonists growing discontented with a
stagnant colonial bureaucracy. Even freemasonry, an organization
anathema to the Catholic Church that opposed secret societies-especially
liberal ones-found a foothold in Spanish America.
Censorship was not relaxed so much as it was poorly enforced.
The writings of Descartes, Montaigne, Voltaire, Rousseau, and others
found their way into the colonies and into private libraries. Even
churchmen and provincial officials, considering themselves “modern”
men, ignored the Inquisition Index and had their own large collections of
books that included “forbidden” writings. Young criollos looked at the
newest descriptions of science, medicine, philosophy, and law, leading
them to speculate and question. They discussed topics ranging from
problems of free trade versus mercantilism and commercial concerns to
the progress of man and natural rights. It should of course be noted that
those who were exposed this way constituted a minority of an elite that
itself was a minority ruling over a mass of largely uneducated people,
including conquered and subjugated Indians who lived a world apart from
the heady mix of Enlightenment ideas. Some criollos were attracted to
Enlightenment teachings as a fad, because others were doing it; and some
found un-Catholic ideas disturbing.
Some interesting contacts were made between the Latin American
and English colonies. The thirteen British colonies had established
connections with Latin America as far back as the 1690s. A lively
correspondence went on between the two regions as scientists, historians,
physicians, and novelists exchanged letters, articles, and books. The 18thcentury saw the beginnings of modern newspapers, though they were
seldom more than four-page sheets, published weekly. Someone living in
a town with a population of 500 in the English colonies could make a
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comfortable living publishing such a newspaper, even surviving on as few
as 200 subscribers if they paid their bills. Such newspapers were often
starved for news items and reprinted stories form other newspapers. They
also translated articles from other languages; thus Latin American and
English readers found audiences for each other’s work.
Arguably the most prominent connection on three continents was
Benjamin Franklin, the closest the colonial era (or since) has come to
replicating the ideal of the Renaissance Man. Of humble origins, Franklin
rose to international fame as a publisher, inventor, and author. He
invented bifocal glasses, the Franklin wood-burning stove, and the
lightning rod. Among his publications were the Pennsylvania Gazette
newspaper, the Saturday Evening Post magazine, and Poor Richard’s
Almanac. He also wrote his autobiography. Franlin helped found the
American Philosophical Society that is still active after more than two and
a half centuries. The Society welcomed the scientific writings of Latin
Americans, and leading Spanish Americans joined the Society as well as
other associations that encouraged the advancement of technical and
economic knowledge. In turn Franklin belonged to many associations in
the Spanish colonies.
When the United States successfully fought its war for
independence, its most famous document was translated into many
languages.
The Declaration of Independence fascinated criollo
intellectuals. Here was a blueprint that justified breaking away from a
mother country. Thomas Jefferson enumerated just about every grievance
a colonial could think of to blame on his ruler (Jefferson’s indictment of
the slave trade, however, was omitted by the Second Continental
Congress; too many delegates owned slaves or were involved in the slave
trade). Spanish colonial officials perceived the dangers of such a
document and tried unsuccessfully to suppress it.
Thomas Paine provided additional documentation that alarmed
European rulers but reached criollos, including translated versions of his
widely circulated revolutionary pamphlets, Common Sense and The Crisis.
As a colonial he was possibly second only to Franklin in acquiring an
international reputation, though his radical ideas were seen as far more
dangerous than Franklin’s homespun philosophy. Later on Paine wrote
The Age of Reason, a treatise on religion and free-thinking that added
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organized religion to his list of enemies. When the French Revolution
broke out and the old order toppled, Paine wrote a defense of it, The
Rights of Man. He was honored with a membership in the National
Convention. There he sat, not understanding a word of what was going on
since he spoke no French, his ideas moving far beyond his personage.
All of this social, political, and philosophical ferment found a
mixed reception among Spanish colonial officials.
Some viceroys
ignored the pleas of the Inquisition to stop the importation of
Enlightenment authors. Instead, the officials encouraged their teaching
and reading, and kept their own private libraries. Other officials tried to
curtail Enlightment writings as politically subversive.
Perhaps a
generation behind their European cousins, criollos included a majority of
apathetic men not especially interested in new ideas, and extremes of
enthusiastic Enlightenment supporters and opponents. When revolution at
last came to Latin America, following on two major revolutions and the
threat of Napoleonic France, colonial leaders could find Enlightenment
roots in their struggle’s political, philosophical, and scientific aspect.
However, given the limited objectives of the Spanish American revolts in
their early stages, these factors may be overemphasized. To the masses of
Indians and peons, the Spanish American Wars of Independence
represented nothing more than a change of leaders.
In Brazil the Enlightenment had even less impact than in the
Spanish American colonies. Portugal was not particularly involved with
the Enlightenment, so any interest in Brazil was handicapped by this
apathy. The colony’s culture was ingrown and backward. However, after
the Academia real das Sciencias (Portuguese Royal Academy of Science)
was established, Brazilians gained some of the lost ground. Brazil was not
a leader, nor was it much of a follower, for Latin America in the
Enlightenment.
As the 18th century drew to a close, some colonial intellectuals
sent word through their writings to Spain that despite their apparent
imitation of things cultural from Europe, they were growing increasingly
aware of their economic backwardness and of the social and political
neglect Spain had accorded them. Taking a cue from their North
American neighbors who had successfully broken away from colonial rule,
these criollos evidenced a growing sense of nationality. There was a sense
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of being Mexican, or, at the very least, South American-and at most,
Venezuelan, Chilean, Paraguayan-new political entities with whom Spain
would have to deal. Spain needed to face the fact that despite the
slightness of the Enlightenment’s effect on Spanish America, there was an
effect. Forbidden books smuggled into the colonies while viceroys and
other officials either looked the other way or else acquired their own
copies showed a desire for change. Journals and newspapers sprang up
like weeds, died after awhile, and were reborn again; and some criollos
called for exchanges of scientific and economic ideas. If the mother
country would not grant such exchanges, then the criollos might move to
take them anyway.
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For Further Reading
Commager, Henry S. The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and
America Realized the Enlightenment (1977).
Darnton, Robert. The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of
the Encyclopedie, 1775-1800 (1979).
Furbank, P.N. Diderot: A Critical Biography (1992).
Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment, an Interpretation (1966).
Herr, Richard. The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain (1958).
Morner, Magnus. The Expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America (1965).
Shuffleton, Frank, ed. The American Enlightenment (1993).
Whitaker, Arthur P., ed. Latin America and the Enlightenment (1961).
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CHAPTER 14:
THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE
The period roughly 1776-1826, a convenient and nicely rounded
fifty years, encompasses the time when most of the nations in the Western
Hemisphere gained their independence. The American Revolution, with
roots dating to the 1760s, served as a model for Latin American
independence, though there may well be as many contrasts as
comparisons. Whatever the differences, the War for Independence fought
by the thirteen colonies touched off an age of revolution. Six years after
the end of the American Revolution, the French Revolution began, running
from 1789 to 1799. The rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte, and his
political ambitions, then led directly to the wars of independence in the
Latin American colonies.
Both the United States and the Spanish American nations were
born from similar roots of discontent. Great Britain and Spain ignored the
complaints of colonials who had become dissatisfied with remote
governments. Colonials on both American continents bypassed the
restrictive policies of mercantilism by becoming heavily involved in
smuggling. They felt themselves a people different from their European
cousins. Just as the English colonists protested aganst Parliament’s
arbitrary legislation, so did criollos express dissatisfaction at the tired rule
of the Council of the Indies and ineffectual Bourbon reforms.
Naturally, there were important differences between the colonies
on two continents. They included differences in size, population, view of
democracy, and the place of Indians, Africans, and mixed-blood peoples in
their society. Stretched along the Atlantic seacoast, the thirteen English
colonies covered a much smaller geographic area than the Spanish territory
that extended from the Borderlands to the southern frontiers of South
America. It should be noted that the modern boundaries of the states in
the United States are not the same as when the original thirteen states were
colonies. Some had charters that extended their territorial claims all the
way across the North American continent, ignoring Spanish claims to
California and other western territories. The charters ignored and were
ignorant of river courses, mountains, deserts, and climate beyond the
Mississippi River. Another distinction lay in the people of the colonies.
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The English colonies were fairly homogeneous, if one excluded Indians
and slaves. Spanish America’s colonies varied from colonies with large
indigenous populations, such as Peru and Mexico, to colonies where the
Indians had been decimated and replaced by African slaves, such as Cuba
and Santo Domingo.
From start to finish, the wars of independence against Great Britain
and Spain lasted approximately the same amount of time if the origins of
the revolutions are taken into account. For the United States, the time
span ran from 1763, when Great Britain began to consider how to pay for
the expense of running an empire and began to impose unacceptable
taxation. For Spanish America, the years vary, but many historians accept
1808 as a starting point when Napoleon’s armies invaded Spain, to 1826,
when the last battles had been fought. Within these time frames
campaigns began and ended in both areas. The chief difference was that
the United States, as one nation, concluded the peace treaty with Great
Britain in 1783. Individual Spanish colonies began their revolutions and
won their independence at various times.
The thirteen colonies largely excluded Indians as allies, though the
British used them. The British also hired Hessians, foreign mercenaries
who fought for money rather than for ideological reasons. For their part,
the colonials obtained major help from France, and indirectly from Spain
and Holland as cobelligerents against Great Britain. The colonials resisted
enlisting free blacks or slaves in their cause, whereas the British promised
freedom to slaves that came to their side. When the British lost the war,
they broke their promises, and many slaves who had been freed were
returned to their masters or resold to plantations in Jamaica or the
Bahamas.
By contrast, the Spanish American Revolutions consisted of a
hodgepodge of race, class, and political allegiances. Indians, mestizos,
mulattoes, blacks, and whites fought on both sides. Although English
colonials spoke of liberty and their rights as Englishmen, few creoles were
democratic. Spanish society with its varying levels of class, caste, and
race was far more complex than English colonial society. As to race,
English plantation owners in the southern colonies were already
formulating the “drop of blood” definition of who was black, a view that
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differed greatly from how persons of color would be seen in Latin America
after independence.
Brazil stood in contrast to the protracted warfare and bloodshed of
the English and Spanish colonies. Its revolution was peaceful, and though
its causes were similar to the Spanish and English colonies, its result was
entirely different, as will be seen later in this chapter.
Both the English and Spanish colonies experienced severe
difficulties following their achievement of independence. The United
States emerged as a nation composed of the former colonies in a federal
system that placed a national government at its head. But it took two
constitutions, years of dispute over the relationship of states to
government, and a civil war to end the matter. Latin America was much
less fortunate. Many colonies experienced conservative revolts-not
changes in the rights of man, but only a switch in rulers. They fought
tremendous conflicts over the issue of central vs. federal rule, an issue that
would continue through the 19th and 20th centuries. “Reform” was mainly
at an abstract level. Some intellectuals favored democratic government,
abolition of slavery, and land reform, and they meant it, in principle if not
in practice. Social reforms as we would understand them today, such as
equal justice for all and wide suffrage, were not contemplated. Largely
lacking a middle class, elitists spoke for the masses in Latin America.
The English Colonies Fight for Independence
England had emerged the major victor in the French and Indian
War. France ceded Canada to Great Britain in the Peace of Paris in 1763,
then turned over Lousiana, the vast heartland of the North American
continent, to Spain as a consolation prize for Spain’s loss of Florida.
Spain in turn had yielded Florida to regain Cuba, taken by England during
the war.
The end result of all these changes was the creation of the British
Empire. Parliament soon found that it cost money to run an empire, and
someone would have to pay that cost. The oldest of the thirteen colonies,
Virginia, had been founded more than 150 years earlier; all but Georgia
were more than eighty years old. Over the decades Great Britain had ruled
with benign neglect, not even enforcing the Navigation Acts that restricted
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colonial manufacturing, and turning a blind eye towards the widespread
smuggling that was making merchants such as John Hancock very rich.
All this was about to change. The summer of 1763 revealed
unsettled conditions on the western frontier and a major rebellion among
the Ottawa, led by Chief Pontiac. Parliament decided that the best way to
deal with colonial conflicts with Indians was to keep them separated.
Accordingly, in October Parliament issued the Proclamation of 1763. It
drew a boundary line across the Appalachian mountain range, west of
which the Indians were to live, and east of which the colonists were
supposed to stay. Many colonists, however, had already crossed the
mountains, either as soldiers during the recent war or because they had
heard stories of fertile farmland. It was unreasonable from the colonial
point of view to restrict them to the eastern side of the Appalachians. For
Parliament, the issue was just another headache given them by the
cantankerous colonists.
Meanwhile, the problem of obtaining revenue to run the empire
plagued a series of mediocre parliamentary ministries during the 1760s.
The members of Parliament generally agreed that the colonies should pay
their fair share of the cost of maintaining troops for their defense,
including supplies, equipment, and all the other items needed by the
military. It seemed easy enough for Parliament to impose a tax on sugar,
but an even better one was to put a tax on the use of paper. Revenue
stamps would have to be purchased and placed on all documents. The
colonials quickly realized that “all” documents meant bills of sale,
newspaper, deeds, and even packages of playing cards.
The Stamp Act united the colonies as no other issue had previously
done. They organized a Stamp Act Congress and set up an effective
boycott of British imports. Merchants in England, cut off from colonial
business, demanded that Parliament withdraw the act. This was done,
though Parliament saved face by passing a Declaratory Act reminding the
colonials that Parliament still made the laws. The colonists knew this but
protested the passage of tax laws anyway. They complained that
Parliament had no members from the colonies-the famous expression
“taxation without representation.”
The representation issue was pretty much a smokescreen.
Parliament for centuries had been based on an allotment of seats to cities,
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but by the 18th century old cities had declined in population while
retaining the seats, while “new” industrial cities such as Manchester had
no seats. The issue of parliamentary reform went on for years, and not
until the reform bills of the 1830s was it finally resolved. In the meantime,
Parliament defended the system by arguing everyone, whether living in
Great Britain or the colonies, was represented by “virtual representation.”
That is, the members of Parliament represented the entire nation, not just
the cities that elected them. Even if Parliament would have granted seats
to the colonies, the number would have been small, the majority in
Parliament would have approved the taxes, and the colonists would still
have been unhappy.
Between 1764 and 1773 Parliament tried a number of tax laws as
one ministry followed another. Tensions grew between colonists and the
soldiers sent to protect them. The notorious “Boston Massacre” in March
1770, in which British soldiers fired on a mob of colonists the soldiers
perceived as a threat to them, exemplified the alienation between colonists
and mother country.
The deciding issue for the colonists occurred in 1774. The East
India Company’s tea harvest had produced a surplus of tea. By judicious
and generous gifts of East India Company stock to members of Parliament,
the company won an exclusive monopoly on tea sales in the colonies. Not
only that, but the tax on tea was reduced below the point where smugglers
could make a living delivering tax-free tea. The difference was that
Parliament intended to enforce the tax collection as never before. The
colonists recognized the tea tax for what it was, and Boston merchants
refused to unload the tea. On December 16, 1774, a group of colonists
disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded the tea ships and dumped the cargo
into Boston Harbor. Parliament responded by passing what the colonists
(and U.S. history textbooks) called the Intolerable Acts-a series of harsh
laws designed to punish the Massachusetts colony for its illegal protest.
The colonies organized a Continental Congress to petition
Parliament on colonial grievances, but attempts to work out a compromise
or address the taxation issue were unsuccessful. When the British Army
attempted to arrest colonial ringleaders and confiscate weapons, the
colonists fought back. April 19, 1775, marked “the shot heard round the
world” and the beginning of the Revolutionary War, but it was not yet a
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war for independence. A provisional government, the Second Continental
Congress, represented the thirteen colonies.
Selection of George
Washington, a Virginian, as leader of the Continental Army helped
persuade the colonies that all were involved in the dispute with
Parliament, not just Massachusetts. Still, perhaps a third of the colonial
population opposed a break with Great Britain.
The first major battle between colonials and the British Army was
fought at Bunker Hill, Massachusetts (actually Breed’s Hill) on June 17,
1775. It resulted in no clear victory for either side. George III declared the
colonies in rebellion and supplemented British forces by hiring Hessian
mercenaries. Royal governors hastily left the colonies that then organized
new governments. In the spring of 1776 Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet,
Common Sense, in which he argued that the colonies needed a clear
purpose and goal. That goal was independence. His pamphlet was widely
distributed and reprinted, and it influenced many colonists towards
forming an independent nation.
The Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to write a
declaration of independence, actually a justification for the motion for
independence that the delegates would vote on. Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and two other men served on the
committee. As is typical with committee projects, Jefferson did almost all
of the writing. He cleverly presented his grievances as a series of “facts”
that were actually accusations. Jefferson ignored Parliament as the source
of colonial discontent and blamed George III for a long list of repressions
directed at the colonies. To read the Declaration of Independence is to
admire Jefferson’s audacity. The Continental Congress approved the
motion “that these colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and
independent states,” on July 2, and set July 4, the date when the
Declaration was presented to the delegates, as Independence Day.
Benjamin Franklin went to France and persuaded Louis XVI to
agree to two treaties, one dealing with trade and commerce, the other a
formal alliance between France and the new United States. France
guaranteed the independence of the new nation. In return, the U.S. would
be an ally of France in any future war with Great Britain, with American
help going to French colonies in the West Indies. France’s entry into the
war prompted Spain to join as a French ally (technically not an ally of the
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U.S.) in hopes of regaining its lost Florida colony. As if Great Britain did
not have enough problems, Holland also declared war against the British.
General Washington lost more battles than he won, and throughout
the war he had to deal with troops leaving because of expired enlistments,
desertions, lack of supplies, weapons, and ammunition, and colonials who
saw nothing wrong with trading with the enemy. In the fall of 1781 the
main British Army under General Cornwallis made the mistake of going
into winter quarters at Yorktown, Virginia, on a peninsula. Washington
saw his chance and laid siege to Yorktown. The French fleet bottled up
the British on the peninsula and prevented them from getting supplies and
reinforcements. Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781. His defeat
proved a major blow to the British. Although diplomatic negotiations
would continue for another two years, and lives would be lost in
skirmishes, the war essentially ended with the Yorktown victory.
According to the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783,
Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. The new
nation’s boundaries extended to the Mississippi River to the west,
somewhat vaguely around the Great Lakes, and to Florida in the south.
Spain won Florida back from Great Britain, though it did not get back
Gibraltar. American fishermen were granted rights to fish off the Grand
Banks of Newfoundland. One important issue remained unsettled: during
the war the Continental Congress had confiscated the estates of Tories
(colonists opposed to independence and remaining loyal to George III).
Settling this question took well over a decade, and the British refused to
evacuate their forts in the Great Lakes area until the Tories were
compensated.
Native American tribes such as the Cherokee, Iroquois, Shawnee,
Chippewa, and others had sided with the British during the war. U.S.
agents held conferences with them and pointed out the Indians had been
treasonable. They exacted “settlements” of land cessions, placed some
tribes on reservations, and tried to smooth out the tensions with gifts and
annuities. Some pacified Indians acculturated to American society. They
learned English, took up farming, and gave up the old ways. Others
remained hostile, and problems between Native Americans and the U.S.
government would fester for another fifty years east of the Mississippi
River boundary.
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The new nation found buffer zones hard to come by. Spain
controlled territory west of the Mississippi River and lower Louisiana,
including the mouth of the great river. The southeastern region would be a
hotbed of intrigues and plots until the early 1800s.
The first constitution of the new nation, the Articles of
Confederation, went into effect on March 1, 1781, replacing the Second
Continental Congress. Severely limited in its power, it made the United
States more a collection of individual states than a unified nation. It could
not levy taxes or coin money, or even establish tariffs on foreign imports.
Each state had one vote in the Confederation Congress, though several
delegates might represent a state. Passing an ordinance required nine of
the thirteen votes; amendment of the Articles needed unanimous consent.
Before long, ambiguities in the new government’s operation provoked the
states. Boundary disputes between states could not be adjudicated since
the Articles provided no instructions about them. Individual states printed
their own money and would not honor the money of other states. The new
nation owed a massive foreign and domestic debt but had no credit or
much income either.
Faced with these problems, the Confederation Congress called for
a convention to meet at Philadelphia in May 1787 to work out remedies.
Almost immediately the delegates agreed to scrap the Articles and created
an entirely new constitution. Between May and September the delegates
hammered out a national government with far greater authority than the
Articles of Confederation. The legislative branch would have two
chambers, a Senate with two members from each state, appointed by their
legislatures, and a House of Representatives, elected by popular vote from
districts within each state.
A complex process called the Electoral
College would choose a President to lead the executive branch of the
government. If a presidential candidate won a majority of the vote in a
state, that state’s votes all went to him, winner take all, regardless how
close the vote might have been. A federal judiciary, appointed for life,
comprised the third branch. The new government would have the power
to levy taxes, pass laws affecting all states, regulate commerce, coin
money, and other strong powers.
Many historians have described the Constitution as a “bundle of
compromises.” Small states resisted the power of large states; an educated
209
elite distrusted the masses; selection of a national executive in the form of
a president was a convoluted affair. Until 1820 the popular vote for
president was not recorded nationally. In its original form the Constitution
was not particularly democratic, as voters could elect a person directly for
only one national office, their local congressman in the House of
Representatives. The Electoral College chose the president, the state
legislators chose the senators, and the Supreme Court justices and other
federal judges held their posts for life. Many states, concerned they were
trading King George III’s autocracy for a new central government tyranny,
made their acceptance of the Constitution conditional with adopting a Bill
of Rights. By 1791 the Bill of Rights, ratified as part of the new
Constitution, was in place, and the first independent nation in the Western
Hemisphere was under way.
Revolutions in Latin America
The Spanish American Wars for Independence came from similar
roots as the grievances of the British colonists. Economic complaints were
high on the list. Colonies could only sell their raw materials to Spain, and
the mother country controlled the importation of finished products. Since
Spain could not supply much of these products, and regulations restricting
commerce were unrealistic in facing the competition with other countries,
contraband trade was extensive. Even the officials sent out to control
smuggling accepted bribes to look the other way.
The criollo class, disaffected by the quality of leadership provided
by viceroys and lesser administrators, chafed at their inability to initiate
policies in their own colonies. Spain had long practiced appointing
peninsular Spaniards (born in Spain) to rule over colonial-born criollos,
despite the possible incompetence of the former or the abilities of the
latter. But little ideology seems to have informed the move for
independence. Democratic government, social reforms, and equality
remained abstract issues. The criollo elite believed the time had come to
be freed from colonial rule, but the elite saw independence as a change of
rulers, with themselves in the leadership position.
The many colonies, spread across one continent and a large part of
another, created unique circumstances for revolts that varied widely in
210
their goals from one place to another. Several examples may illustrate the
many comparisons and contrasts.
The first major revolt against European rule in Latin America did
not occur in a Spanish colony. Saint Domingue (now Haiti) occupied the
western third of the island of Hispanola (also called Santo Domingo), and
it had been a French colony since France acquired it from Spain in 1697.
France obtained considerable revenue from sugar, coffee, cotton, and
indigo, plantation products produced by slave labor. By 1800 there were
half a million whites in the colony and almost as many slaves. An elite of
wealthy white planters dominated the economy, envied by the poor whites,
and both groups were concerned over the growing numbers of freedmen.
French policy declared that children of mixed-race marriages were free.
But the impetus for revolution came from the slaves. Just three years after
the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, the slaves rose in revolt
against their masters.
One slave leader, Toussaint L’Ouverture, emerged from the
struggle as a man of unusual talent and ability. Literate and well educated
(by a kindly master), L’Ouverture united the slaves into a coherent force
that successfully resisted the French army sent to put down the revolt. The
revolution in France inspired the slaves even as it alarmed the planters.
When Napoleon came to power in France, he wanted the revenues from
the plantations, and that meant ending the revolt and a return to the status
quo. He used deception to trick L’Ouverture into accepting an apparent
truce. L’Ouverture was arrested and taken to France, where he died in
prison in 1803. Other leaders, however, such as Henri Christophe and
Jean Jacques Dessalines, continued the fight and won complete
independence. Tragically, France left the former colony in chaos, and its
subsequent history as an independent nation would be marred with
repression and dictatorship.
Napoleon’s European campaigns led directly to revolt in the
Spanish American colonies. In 1808 he sent his army into Spain and
overwhelmed the government. Carlos IV abdicated, and his son,
Ferdinand VII, was interned in Paris. Napoleon placed his brother Joseph
on an alleged throne, taking over Portugal at the same time. This
aggression prompted colonial declarations of loyalty to Ferdinand VII and
revolts against the French takeover of Spain.
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In Mexico, the original idea for revolt was to protest against the
imposition of Joseph Bonaparte as a usurper, but the revolt quickly
mutated into something entirely different. Several plots were planned, but
information leaks prompted their cancellation. One plot, however, was
well under way, and its leaders decided to go ahead. The motive force
behind this effort was Father Miguel Hidalgo, an unusual priest who sided
with the mestizos and Indians rather than the elite. The main goal was to
revolt in the name of Ferdinand VII and gain some independence from the
Spanish government, but Hidalgo soon revealed his own agenda. He
decided to involve the Indians and made promises of economic and social
reforms a century ahead of their time.
On September 16, 1810, Hidalgo proclaimed Mexico’s
independence in his famous Grito de Dolores, raised an Indian army, and
marched on Mexico City. At first he was successful, his army winning
one battle after another. His army, unfortunately, had no training as such
and committed atrocities to avenge past grievances. Criollo leaders
became alarmed at the excesses and at goals so far beyond their own
revolutionary intentions. The Catholic Church excommunicated Hidalgo
and those who followed him.
When Hidalgo failed to capture Mexico City, the tide turned
against him, and a well-armed criollo army moved to put down his revolt.
By March 1811 Hidalgo’s revolt was over. He was captured, tried, and
executed, along with other revolt leaders. Some resistance, most notably
by Jose Maria Morelos and Vicente Guerrero, continued for about four
more years. Ironically, Agustin de Iturbide, the criollo officer who had
captured Hidalgo, completed the fight for Mexico’s independence in 1821not for democracy but against it, as conservative Mexicans had no wish to
be ruled by a restored and more liberal Spanish government. Iturbide had
himself made emperor of the new nation, but he lasted only a year.
Mexico’s first fifty years of independence would be marked by struggles
for power between centralists and federalists, a war with the United States,
and an invasion by French aggressors.
South America presented a huge arena for revolutionary struggle.
In some areas colonies fought a civil war among themselves in attempting
to define national boundaries, an issue that endures to the present day. In
northern South America, Simon Bolivar set up the nation of Gran
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Colombia, consisting of today’s Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador, but
his creation fell apart as each region struggled to preserve its own identity.
Gran Colombia did not survive Bolivar’s lifetime. Buenos Aires Province
experienced the rivalry between the centralist portenos of Buenos Aires
and the federalist interior gauchos who at times sided with the Royalists,
other times with the revolutionaries. Paraguay, Buenos Aires (soon to
become Argentina), and the Banda Oriental (modern Uruguay) struggled
for definition.
Ferdinand VII earned much of the blame for the disruption of his
colonies. During his imprisonment the Spanish people had revolted
against the French invaders. Acting in the name of their absent captive
king, they fought bitter battles against superior French forces. England,
fighting France, became allied with the Spanish resistance. In 1812 the
Spanish Cortes (government) adopted a liberal constitution that provided
for a limited monarchy and civil liberties. The new constitution did little
for the Spanish American colonies, however, beyond indicating that the
political and economic colonial structure would remain intact. Still,
Spanish American leaders saw Spain’s distress as an opportunity, and they
confused an already muddled war by challenging colonial officials as to
whether they supported Joseph Bonaparte or Ferdinand VII. Royalists,
however, doubted the sincerity of criollo pledges of loyalty to Ferdinand
VII.
Napoleon’s ambitions ultimately exceeded his attempts to control
events. His war on Russia ended disastrously, and he was forced to
abdicate his throne and go into temporary exile on the island of Elba. He
attempted a comeback early in 1815, but he suffered a final defeat at the
Battle of Waterloo, one of those events historians call a “turning point in
history.” The British exiled him to the island of St. Helena, a flyspeck in
the south Atlantic, where he died six years later. Meanwhile, the victors
met at Vienna, Austria, to try to put Europe back together again. Much
like the king’s horses and king’s men who could not reassemble Humpty
Dumpty, the monarchs and ministers found it difficult to restore Europe to
its earlier political status quo. Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine had
reduced the number of central European kingdoms from 300 to less than
40, and no one knew how to untangle what he had done.
213
Ferdinand VII proved a most ungrateful king. In a futile attempt to
turn the clock back, he repudiated the 1812 constitution and made it clear
the colonies should give up the rights they had asserted for themselves in
his name when opposing the Bonapartes. He planned to send troops to
Spanish America to put down any rebellions, but in January 1820 a
regiment mutinied rather than go there, and Ferdinand had to restore the
liberal constitution.
Meanwhile, Simon Bolivar’s army liberated
Venezuela, moved on to Quito (a major Spanish stronghold in the Andes),
and advanced on Peru. Jose de San Martin raised armies that did similar
work in the southern half of the continent.
Bolivar and San Martin were but two of the great patriots who
fought to liberate the South American colonies from Spanish rule.
Antonio Jose Sucre in Ecuador, Bernardo O’Higgins in Chile, Jose
Antonio Paez in Venezuela, and many other leaders survived the twists
and turns of the political ferment to make memorable achievements in the
liberation of their nations. Bolivar is sometimes referred to as the “George
Washington of South America,” but his dedication and success could well
reverse the title to make Washington “the Bolivar of North America.”
The last South American nation to achive independence from
Spain was Uruguay in 1828. By then only two colonies in the Western
Hemisphere remained under Spanish control, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Off
and on, the wars of independence had taken the better part of two decades.
Were they revolutions? Only in the political sense. Problems of social
structure in the colonies would remain unchanged, and economic
development was shunted aside as the 19th century became a time of
political turmoil for most of Latin America.
The Bloodless Brazilian Revolution
In contrast to the rest of Latin America, Brazil achieved its
independence without bloodshed. When Napoleon’s army invaded
Portugal in March 1807, Prince Regent John moved the entire royal court
from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, including his insane Queen Mother. The
ships, supplied by the British, carried civil, religious, and military leaders,
members of high society, and professional people. The royal treasurydiamonds, silver plate, jewels, and heirlooms-along with books, religious
214
objects, printing presses, maps, the royal library, and government files, all
went on the ships. This collection of people and the machinery of state
crowded onto the ships, with too many passengers for the space. Women
had to cut their hair since washing it was impossible. When they arrived
in Brazil, the colonial ladies assumed short hair was the latest European
fashion and cut their own.
On landing at Bahia, John set up the machinery of administration,
and life became a series of celebrations for the rescue of the royal family.
John showed his gratitude by reducing prison sentences and granting
pardons. He promised to improve roads, started a school of medicine, and
gave out titles and decorations. Soon the royal court moved to Rio de
Janeiro, and there in effect recreated the sovereign state of Portugal in
Brazil. John’s decrees formalized all actions taken, and many laws were
passed that would not have been had Brazil remained only a colony. In
effect, John made Brazil over in the image of the mother country.
The makeover made up for decades if not centuries of neglect in
education, a lack of libraries, newspapers, printing presses, and intellectual
repressions. John set up schools, with courses in agriculture, mathematics,
physics, chemistry, and cartography. He recognized the power and
privilege already in the country by rewarding the colonial elite with
nonhereditary titles, among them 28 marquises, eight counts, sixteen
vicounts, 21 barons, 4,084 knights, etc. He also set up a tax system and
continued the dictatorial powers of local officials. In 1815 he raised Brazil
to the rank of kingdom, making it coequal with the mother country.
In 1820 Portuguese leaders completed the restoration of their
government and demanded that John return to Lisbon. They wanted him
to end the dual monarchy he had created; he was king of Portugal, and they
wanted him there, not in Brazil. By 1822 John’s courtiers were homesick
for Portugal anyway. John approved the new constitution and sailed for
Portugal, never to return to Brazil. He left Dom Pedro, his son and heir, as
regent for Brazil. When the Portuguese Cortes revoked all the liberties
Brazil had been granted since 1808, Dom Pedro refused to obey the
government’s demand that he return. On September 7, 1822 (Brazil’s
official independence day), Dom Pedro proclaimed the Cry of Ipiranga,
“Independence or Death.” The rhetoric wasn’t really necessary, since
Portugal didn’t put up a fight. In December Dom Pedro became the
215
constitutional emperor of Brazil. The monarchy would last there until
1889.
Independence
How to define the boundaries of the new Latin American nations?
Under the doctrine of uti posseditis, new states would have the boundaries
of the old colonies. Most of these had been poorly defined, however, and
friction over boundaries would continue down through the 20th century.
There seemed to be no middle ground in Latin American society. A
privileged minority controlled land and offices, and the mass of peasants
and workers had no power.
To gain true independence the United States had to fight two wars
with Great Britain, the American Revolution and the War of 1812, and
fight off numerous cabals and intrigues, from the Whiskey Rebellion to
Aaron Burr’s plot, before stability was assured. Even then, issues of
central government vs. states rights, and the controversy over slavery,
would eventually plunge the United States into civil war. In Latin
America, independence did not fulfill the idealistic visions of its
supporters. Bolivar’s Gran Colombia fell apart, and later in the century
Paraguay would fight a bloody war against the combined forces of
Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Chile would fight Bolivia and Peru.
Social, economic, and geographic factors would challenge the new
nations. The political exchange of old rulers for new would not be enough
to solve the problems of nationhood.
216
For Further Reading
Alden, John R. The American Revolution (1954).
Anna, Timothy A. Spain and the Loss of America (1985).
Countryman, Edward. The American Revolution (1985).
Gipson, Lawrence H. The Coming of the Revolution, 1763-1775 (1954).
Hamill, Hugh F. The Hidalgo Revolt (1966).
Humphreys, Robin A., and Lynch, John, eds. The Origins of the Latin
American Revolutions, 1808-1826 (1965).
Johnson, John. Simon Bolivar and Spanish-American Independence,
1783-1830 (1968).
Lynch, John. The Spanish-American Revolutions, 1808-1826 (1973).
Morgan, Edmund S. The Birth of the Republic (1956).
Royster, Charles. A Revolutionary People at War (1979).
Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787
(1969).
217
INDEX.
Abolition movement against slavery, 97-98
Academia real das Sciencias (Portuguese Royal
Academy of Science), 207
Acosta, Juan de, 178
Adams, John, 216
Africa, explored by Portugal, 9-11
African slave trade, 10, 85-98, 139
Africans, in Conquest of Americas, 76
Age of Discovery, 6-8, 50
Aguilar, Jeronimo de, 37
Alarcon, Hernando de, 61
Albuquerque, Antonio de, 114
Alcabala, 167
Aldeias, 105
Alexander VI (Pope), 14, 69
Almagro, Diego de, 39, 42-43
Almojarifazgo, 167
Amazon River, 45
Alvarado, Pedro de, 38, 60
America, discovery by Vikings, 5-6; named for
Amerigo Vespucci, 17
American Philosophical Society, 206
American Revolution, 211, 213-219
Amigos del Pais (Economic Friends of the
Nation), 202; in Latin America, 205
Amistad, slave ship and revolt, 92
Angola, 109; and Brazil, 109-113
Anne (English Queen), 188-190
Arab Explorations, 15-16
Articles of Confederation, 218
Artisans, 78
Asiento, 89
Asuncion, Paraguay, 80
Atahualpa, 39-41
Audiencias, 72
Auto-da-fe, 153
Aztecs, 24; settling in Valley of Mexico, 25; religious beliefs, 25-27; social
classes, 28; agriculture, 29
Bahamas colony, 145
Balboa, Vasco Nunez de, 55, 59
218
Bandeiras, bandeirantes, 111-112, 151
Barbados, 182
Bolivar, Simon, 222-223
Bonaparte, Joseph, 221-222
Boston Massacre, 215
Bougainville, Louis de, 53
Bourbons (Spanish royal house), 163
Braganza (Portuguese royalhouse after 1640),
113
Brazil, 101-116; gold rush, 113-114; in
Enlightenment, 207
Brazilwood, 103
British Guiana colony, 145
Brookes, slave ship, 91, 998
Bucareli, Antonio Maria, 161
Burr, Aaron, 225
Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Nunez, 59-61
Cabildos (town councils), 159
Cabot, John, 133
Cabral, Pedro Alvarez, 14, 101
Cabrillo, Juan Rodriguez, 63
Caciques (chiefs), 161
California, 60-61, 63, 194; as an island, 54, 178
Cape Blanco, 10
Cape Bojador, 10
Carlos I (also Charles V), ruler of Spain and
Holy Roman Emperor, 33, 39, 41-42,
74, 166, 181
Carlos II (Spanish king), 114, 186, 189
Carlos III (Spanish king), 151, 156, 163, 192,
200-204
Carlos IV (Spanish king), 96, 163, 203, 204, 220
Cartier, Jacques, 120-121
Carvajal, Fr. Gaspar de, 45
Casa de Contratacion (Board of Trade),
158, 172
casa grande, 111
Castro, Vaca de, 43
Catherine of Braganza, 187
Catherine the Great (Empress of Russia), 200
Catholic Church in the Americas, 149-163
Cervantes, Miguel de, 198
Champlain, Samuel, 123-124
219
Charles (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”), 192
Charles I (English king), 140-141, 186-187
Charles II (English king), 142-143, 183, 187
Charles VI (Emperor of Austria and Holy
Roman Emperor), 191
Charles IX (French king), 122
Christophe, Henri, 220
Chibcha people, 44
Chinese explorations, 15-16
Clarkson, Thomas (abolitionist), 91, 98
Clergy, regular and secular, 149
Coelho, Duarte, 104
Cofradias (brotherhoods), 150
Coligny, Gaspar de, 121
Colonization, defined, 49
Columbus, Christopher, 11-14, 19, 120, 135;
“discovers” America, 13; later voyages,
16-17, 53
Compilation of the Laws of the Indies, 159
Conilha, Pedro de, 11
Conquest, defined, 49; reasons for success, 67;
justification, 68
Constitution (U.S.), 218-219
Cornwallis, Charles, 217
Coronado, Francisco Vasquez de, 44, 62-63
Cortes, Hernando, 23, 35-38, 59-60, 69-70
Council of the Indies (Royal and Supreme
Council of the Indies), 158-159
Couriers du bois, 125
Criollos, 77, 204-205, 219
Cromwell, Oliver, 141, 187
Cruz, Sor Juana Ines de la, 176
Cry of Ipiranga (Brazilian independence), 225
Darien, 185-186
Debt peonage, 86
Declaratory Act, 214
Declaration of Independence, 216
Deism, 200
Del Cano, Juan Sebastian, 55
Descartes, Rene, 198, 205
Dessalines, Jean Jacques, 220
Dias, Bartholomeu, 11
Diderot, Denis, 199
220
Diego, Juan, sees Virgin of Guadalupe, 150
Diseases in the Americas, 81
Doctrine of Consent, 119
Donatario system, 104
Douceur, le, 120
Drake, Francis, 135, 186
Dutch in Brazil, 106-109
East India Company, 215
Eco, Umberto, 52
Economy of Spanish America, 165-173
Edinborough Company, 185
Edward VI (English king), 134
El Dorado (the “Golden Man”), 44
Elizabeth I (English queen), 134-137, 156, 181
Emboabas (“late-comers”), 114
Encomienda system, 70, 170
England in the Americas, 133-146
England and Caribbean colonies, 145
Enlightenment and the Americas, 197-208
Eric the Red, 5
Erickson, Leif, 5
Estancias (ranchos), 170
Estevanico, 59, 61-62
Exploration, defined, 49
Explorations (Spain), 59-64
Ferdinand V (Spanish king, ruler of Aragon), 69,
133, 152-153
Ferdinand VI (Spanish king), 201
Ferdinand VII (Spanish king), 221-222
Feyjoo y Montenegro, Benito Geronimo, 201
-202
Fleets (flotas), 172-173
France in the Americas, 119-130; in Brazil, 122
-123; in Canada, 123-125; in
Mississippi Valley, 125-128
Francis I (French king), 120
Francis II (French king), 122
Franklin, Benjamin, 206, 216
Frederick II (king of Prussia), 191, 200
French and Indian War (7 Years’ War), 192-193
French colonies in South America and
Caribbean, 129-130
221
French Guiana, 129
French Revolution, 202, 211, 220
Frobisher, Martin, 57
Frontenac, Louis de, 126-127
Galileo, 7, 198
Gama, Vasco de, 14-15
Gante, Fr. Pedro de, 176
Guachos, 222
George I (English king), 190
George II (English king), 144
George III (English king), 216
Georgia colony, 144, 185
Gilbert, Humphrey, 57
Glorious Revolution of 1688, 188
Godoy, Manuel de, 203-204
Gongora, Luis de, 174
Gongorism, 174-175
Government in the Americas, 157-163
Gran Colombia, 222, 225
Great Migration (of Puritans), 141, 184
Gregory VII ( Pope), 198
Grijalva, Juan de, 36
Grito de Dolores (Mexican independence), 221
Guarani Indians, 46, 80
Guerrero, Vicente, 221
Habsburg monarchs, 33, 107, 166, 171, 186, 201
Haciendas (estates), 72, 170
Hamilton, Earl J. (economist), 167
Hancock, John, 214
Hanover (English royal house), 190
Harrison, John, 52
Hawikuh (Zuni pueblo), 62
Hawkins, John, 135
Henry II (French king), 122, 181
Henry IV (French king), 123-124
Henry VII (English king), 133
Henry VIII (English king), 133-134
Henry the Navigator (Portuguese prince), 9-10
Hernandez de Cordoba, Francisco, 36
Hessians, 212
Heyn, Piet, 107
Hidalgo, Fr. Miguel, 221
222
Hobbes, Thomas, 198
Holland (Netherlands, Dutch) in Brazil, 106-109
Hooker, Thomas, 141
Huascar (Inca ruler), 39
Huayna-Capac (Incaruler), 39, 81
Hudson, Henry, 57-58, 124-125, 143
Hudson’s Bay Fur Company, 125
Huguenots (French Protestants), 121
Huitzilopochtli (Aztec Sun God), 26,38, 150
Hume, David, 198
Huron people, 124
Inca Empire, 29, 39-42
Indentured servants and servitude, 93
Indians of Brazil, 105
Inquisition, 152-155, 201, 203
Intellectual trends in Americas, 1784-178
Intendencia system, 163
International rivalries, 181-194
Interregnum, 142
Intolerable Acts, 215
Iroquois, 124, 127
Isabella (Spanish queen, ruler of Castile), 12-13,
16, 133, 152-153
Jamaica colony, 145-182
James I (English king), 44, 138, 186, 190
James II (English king), 144, 187-190; as Duke
of York 143
James III (the “Old Pretender”), 188
Jamestown colony, 137-139
Jefferson, Thomas, 206, 216
Jenkins, Robert, loses an ear, 191
Jesuits, 151, 201
Jews, expelled from Spain, 166; and the
Inquisition, 153-154
Jimenez de Quesada, Gonzalo, 43-44
John II (also Jao, Portuguse king), 11
John IV (also Jao, Portuguese king), 113
John VI (also Jao, prince regent, later Portuguese
king), 224
Joliet, Louis, 126-127
Joseph II (Emperor of Austria), 200
Jovellanos, Gaspar de, 202-204
223
Keen, Benjamin (historian), 186
Kidd, William, 182
King George’s War (War of the Austrian
Succession), 191-192
King Philip (Metacom of Wampanoag tribe),
184
King Philip’s War, 184
King Willliam’s War (also called War of the
League of Augsburg and Nine Years’
War), 188-189
Kino, Eusebio, 149
La Salle, Sieur (Rene Robert Cavalier), 127-128
Laissez-faire trade, 202
Las Casas, Bartolome de, 69,70, 74, 149, 178
Latifundios, 170
Latitude (parallels), 52
Lavradores, 111
Laws of Burgos, 69, 157
Leon, Ponce de, 59
Leopold I (ruler of Austria), 188
Locke, John, 198
Longitude (meridians), 52, 178
Lopez de Cardenas, Garcia, 62
Lord Dunsmore, 192
Louis XIV (French king), 127, 186-190
Louis XV (French king), 128, 192, 199-200
Louis XVI (French king), 203
L’Ouverture, Toussaint, 220
Luces, 203
Lumieres, 200, 202
Magellan, Ferdinand, 53-56, 120, 135
Malinche (Dona Marina), 37
Manco Inca (Inca ruler), 42-43
Manila Galeon, 173
Marco Polo, 7-8
Marcos de Niza, Fray, 61
Maria Luisa (Spanish queen), 203-204
Maria Theresa (Empress of Austria), 191
Marquette, Jacques, 126-127
Mary (English queen), 134
Mary (English queen, wife of Willliam III), 188
224
Mary of Modena, 188
Mary Queen of Scots, 122
Maryland colony, 142
Maurits, Johan, 107-108
Mayflower (Pilgrim ship), 140
Mayflower Compact, 140
Medici, Catherine de, 122
Mendoza de Negra, Alvarado de, 53
Mendoza, Antonio de (viceroy), 60-63, 161, 176
Menendez de Aviles, Pedro, 122
Mercantilism, 166
Mercator, Gerhard, 51
Merchants in Hispanic society, 78
Mesada and media ante, 168
Mesta, 170
Mestizo, 77, 171
Mita, 72-73
Moctezuma II, 35-38, 68
Montaigne, Michele de, 205
Montesinos, Fr. Antonio de, 69
Montesquieu, Charles, 199,201
Morelos, Jose Maria, 221
Morgan, Henry, 182-183
Mound Builders of Mississippi Valley, 29
Mulatto, 77
Munk, Jens, 58
58
Muslims, expelled from Spain, 166
Napoleon Bonaparte, 96, 204, 211, 220-223
Narvaez, Panfilo de, 59
Native peoples of the Americas, 19-20; arrival in
Americas, 21-22; reasons for defeat by
conquistadors, 23-24
New Granada, 44, 46
New Hampshire colony, 142
New Laws of 1542, 75
New Orleans, founded, 128
New Netherlands, 107-108
Newspapers in the Americas, 205-206
Newton, Isaac, 198
“no peace beyond the line” policy, 182, 186
Noche Triste, 38
Nootka Sound Convention, 194
225
North Carolina colony, 143
Northwest Passage, 56-59, 63, 121
Nova Albion (Pacific Coast), 135
Nunez Vela, Blanco (viceroy), 43
Occupations in colonial Hispanic society, 78
O’Higgins, Bernardo, 223
Open Polar Sea (Paleocrystic Sea), 58
Ordonez de Montalvo, Garci, 60
Orellana, Francisco de, 45
Paez, Jose Antonio, 223
Paine, Thomas, 206-207, 216
Pampas, 113
Paulistas, 114
Peary, Robert, 58
Pedrarias Davila, 39
Pedro I (first king of Brazil), 224-225
Penn, William, 143-144
Pennsylvania colony, 143-144
Philip II (Spanish king), 56, 134-135, 152, 155,
173, 177, 181, 186
Philip III (Spanish king), 107,186
Phjlip IV (Spanish king), 107, 186
Philip V (Spanish king), 201
Philippines, 173
Pilgrims (Separatists), 140, 184
Pirates, 182-183
Pizarro, Francisco, 23, 39-43, 59
Pizarro, Gonzalo, 40, 43, 45
Pizarro, Pedro, 40
Plantation slavery, 88, 96-97
Pocahontas, 138
Portenos, 222
Portugal, explorations, 8-11; and slave trade, 88;
and Brazil, 101-116; and race relations,
115-116
presidios, 151
Prester John, 8
Primogeniture, 75
Proclamation of 1763, 214
Ptolemy (Roman geographer), 9, 55; Ptolemaic
226
geography, 9
Pueblo peoples of North America, 29
Puritans, 140-142, 184
Quebec, founded, 124
Quetzalcoatl, 26-27, 35
Quinto (royal 20%), 34, 114, 167
Racial identification, 77
Raleigh, Walter, 44, 136, 145
Reconquista, 33
Religion in the Americas, 149-157
Repartimiento, 72, 170
Requerimiento, 69
Restoration colonies, 143-144
Revillagigedo, Count (viceroy), 161
Ribaut, Jean, 121-122
Richelieu, Cardinal, 124
Roanoke colony, 136-137
Roosevelt, Theodore, 50
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 199-200, 202, 205
Royal African Company, 90
Ruiz de Montoya, Antonio, 149
Sa, Salvador de, 112-113
Sacred Expedition, 194
Sahagun, Bernardino de, 178
Saint Domingue (also Santo Domingo), 129,
183, 204, 220
San Juan de Letran, 176
Sanbenito (penitence garment), 153
Sandoval, Alonzo de, 178
San Martin, Jose de, 223
Scurvy, 51, 124
Seaflower, 185
Sebastian (Portuguese king), 107
Sergas de Esplandian, Las, 60
Serra, Junipero, 149
Settlement, defined, 49
Seven Cities of Gold, 60-63
Siguenza y Gongora, Carlos, 175-176
Slave revolts, 92
Slave trade, beginnings, 10
Slavery, rationales for, 93-94
227
Slaves, purchase price, 89
Smith, Adam, 202
Smith, John, 138
Solomon Islands, 53
Soto, Hernando de, 63, 81, 127
South Carolina colony, 143
South Sea Company, 191
Spanish Armada, 136
Stamp Act Congress, 214
Strait of Anian, 63, 135
Stuart, (English royal house), 142, 190
Sweden and North America, 143
Syncretism, 156
Taxes, 167-168
Tecazlipoca, 26, 150
Terra nulllius, 119, 125
Thatch, Edward (Blackbeard), 182
Tlacaellel, 26
Toledo, Francisco de (viceroy), 43, 72
Tortuga, 182
Transients in Hispanic society, 79
Treaty of Aix-la-Chappele, 192
Treaty of Madrid, 115, 183
Treaty of Paris (1763), 193
Treaty of Paris (1783), 217
Treaty of Ryswick, 183, 189
Treaty of Tordesillas, 14, 115, 119
Treaty of Utrecht, 191
Triangular Trade, 96
Tribute, 71
Tudor (English royal house), 133-134
Tupac Amaru, 43
Tupac Amaru II, 43
Ulloa, Antonio, 155
Ulloa, Francisco de, 61
Ultramontanists, 204
University of Mexico, 177
University of Salamanca, 177
University of San Marcos, 177
University of Santo Domingo, 177
Urdaneta, Andres, 56, 173
Uti posseditis, 225
228
Velasquez, Diego de, 36
Verrazano, Giovanni, 120
Vespucci, Amerigo, 17
Viceroys in the Americas, 159-163
Viceroyalties, 160-161
Vikings in America, 5-6
Virgin of Guadalupe, 150
“virtual representation,” 215
Vizinho, Joseph, 11
Voltaire, Jean Francois, 199, 202, 205
War of the Austrian Succession, (King George’s War), 191192
War of Jenkins’ Ear, 191
War of the League of Augsburg (King William’s
War), 188-189
War of the Spanish Succession (Queen Anne’s
War), 114, 125, 190-191
Wars of Independence, 211-225; British
colonies, 213-219; Latin American
colonies, 219-225
Washington, George, 192, 216-217
West Indies Company, 107
White, John, 136
Whitney, Eli, 89
Wilberforce, Wilbur (abolitionist), 98
William III (English king, husband of Mary),
188
Williams, Roger, 141
Zacuto, Abraham, 11
229